


Knight Errant

by Gemma_Inkyboots



Series: Alt-Vos Saga [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Friendships, Drift's still figuring this consent thing out, Driving, Escape, Finding what you're good at, Kinks, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Oblivious Drift, Past Drug Use, Past Prostitution, Slow Burn, Somnophilia, That isn't shooting things, Unwanted Advances, Withdrawal, figuring out relationships, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 07:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7609570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemma_Inkyboots/pseuds/Gemma_Inkyboots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a thousand ways down into the Dead End, and only one way to leave it.</p><p>At least until a chance encounter sends the very beginnings of Megatron's revolution spinning in a new direction, and Drift finds his way out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dead End

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is a side story that's intended to slot in with the much, much larger and slower-going Megatron and Orion fic Raised by Moogles and I are working on, and as such there's only a light (and increasingly lighter) focus on the plot. I have a ridiculous soft spot for Drift, much as I do Prowl, and this is my attempt to make things wind up better for him.
> 
> General story warnings: Casual mentions of past sex work, drug use, starvation, laying down to die/attempted suicide and losing people; Drift's never really encountered the concept of 'consent' before, and this throws him off balance along with his partner/s; frame upgrades that don't really get fully explained other than 'your armour is wet tissue paper, here, hold still' that Drift goes along with but could be considered dubcon as a result. 
> 
> Some background events will become clearer when we post the larger fic, but I hope this stands on its own regardless. :D There won't be much of a regular posting schedule as I'm still figuring out a few things, but I hope you enjoy. ^_^

The Dead End was a lightless pit under Iacon’s pedes, a place of monsters and Empties and worse; a convenient threat for mentors and overseers with no other way of imposing their will on their charges. Once you fall down that far, there was no way back up into the light - once you sank into the depths, there was no hope of rescue or redemption. _Behave, or you’ll wind up in the Dead End, and then what will you do?_

That was the horror story. Those who actually lived in the Dead End knew that it was easy enough to get out of the darkness of the Dead End - their world extended up into the levels that might not be as bright as the golden walls of Iacon, but were well-lit enough for slumming Iaconians and the better-off Dead Enders to barter and trade and steal and frag whatever they could afford to. The trouble with the Dead End was getting out and _staying_ out, truly leaving, and in some ways the lighter levels were the more dangerous.

Drift had been up to the twilight plenty of times. He’d _been_ one of the battered frames leaning against a street corner, trying to look less fragged-out than the others so someone would choose him - and if he could get his fingers into the lucky mech’s subspace as they got their spike into him, or jammed themselves onto his spike in turn, then so much the better. It hadn’t been all that long since his last trip up here to find a dealer, his denta throbbing and optics ready to melt down under the lights.

It hadn’t been that long since Gasket.

He stalked past a mech haggling for scrap, past hollow-opticed younglings lingering in an alley looking for a mark, and tried to figure out what the slag he was going to do.

Gasket- Gasket wasn’t around anymore. There was no comfort in his memories alone. Gasket wouldn’t be there to keep his optics open while Drift handled the marks looking for a bit of shareware - he wouldn’t be there to pick Drift up after a bad job, patch what he could and pop out the dents. Drift had something of a reputation now, whispers following him in the darkness below-levels - he’d fired a gun, he’d killed an Enforcer, killed _more than one_ Enforcer when he’d stumbled around the corner and found them standing over Gasket’s broken frame - but that didn’t mean he was safe. It meant he was alone, and watched like one of the gangers and chop-shop thugs by the rest of the Dead End gutter trash. Maybe he could use that, trade on that fear and use it to - to _get somewhere,_ but even without the Syk and boosters taking away all the things he didn’t want to think about, he didn’t know how.

Gasket would have known. Drift bit his lip against the burn of his spark and kept moving.

The Medic might know. After Gasket - he’d traded away everything for as many boosters as he could get his hands on, jammed them all onto one memory stick and straight into his processor trying to follow. Still a coward, a lasknife would have been faster, more certain...

He still didn’t know how it had happened, but he’d woken up in light. 

It hadn’t hurt, to his distant surprise. He hadn’t really thought about what it would be like, being dead, but not hurting and having Gasket there...that sounded pretty good. He’d lain still for who knew how long, blinking dazedly as his optics slowly, slowly corrected for the glow overhead, the world a wash of dirty grey light with distant voices slowly filtering in.

“...been through the mill.”

He blinked, optics resetting and this time the input stayed steady. The ceiling was grimy, which was familiar, but the heavy mechanical arms hanging from it weren’t - and the voice wasn’t Gasket’s. Drift shifted on the berth, and then above him, haloed in light...

...well. The face he’d seen and the tired, kind voice had stuck with him, lingering in his processor instead of falling into the holes he’d punched into his memories with boosters and worse. _You’re special - I can tell. Now get out there and prove me right._

_How?_

Drift was starting to wish he’d asked before he’d slipped out. And maybe waited around to see if there was any more of whatever it was that had cancelled out the worst of the booster pangs while he was in the clinic; despite the repairs and the warmth of a full tank, and the smooth oil worked into his joints so they didn’t ache so bad, when whatever was in his system wore off he’d had one of the worst cycles of recharge purges he could remember. Endless rounds of shaking, his tanks revolting against him, limbs locking up and night-terrors worse than anything he’d ever gone through before...

He’d locked his jaw and endured. At least he’d made it to one of- one of his and Gasket’s bolt holes, one that hadn’t been claimed by someone else while he hadn’t been there; Drift had locked up and shook through the worst of it, and licked pipes for fuel when he could handle something going into his tanks without purging it straight back out. _No more Syk. No more forgetting._ If he forgot Gasket...he wasn’t going to think about that.

Now, making his way through the twilight-level streets, Drift kept a wary sensor-set out for Enforcers as well as for the usual dangers. Part of him wished he’d had the clarity to keep hold of the Enforcer blaster he’d grabbed back then, but...

He’d held Gasket as he died. Not many got that, down here. Maybe it helped. 

Drift passed another alleyway without incident before pausing, darkness-sharpened audials catching the heaviness of multiple pedes slipping through the backstreets parallel to his. He started moving again before anyone could take advantage of his distraction, heading through the winding crush of pathways as though he had a firm destination in mind - and he did, in a sense. It didn’t pay to be lost or surprised in the Dead End, and in many ways the twilight levels were more dangerous than the darkness below - people got killed in the twilight, where in the darkness most just laid down to die. He walked most of the way past a tumbledown alleyway that had given way in some long-lost golden age and surrendered to decay, and clambered up the rusted-solid mass holding up the buildings on either side. 

The back alleys were darker, less exposed compared to what passed for the main thoroughfares on the Dead End’s lighter levels. Drift boosted himself - hah - up onto the roof of one of the lower buildings, far enough down from the braces of the level above for him to fit comfortably, and peered over the edge. To the heavy frames moving at a steady march through the maze of half-collapsed and rusting walls, the dimness might have seemed comforting, maybe closer to what they were used to; Drift had seen a few mineframes before, even if the accent wasn’t as familiar as the outlines.

“I’m tellin’ you, we’re _lost._ That rotten little slag-sucker merchant got what he wanted and got us _lost._ There’ll be Enforcers on our backs any click now-”

“So help me, if you don’t stop complaining-”

Kinda funny, in a way. If one of the con-merchants down here had sold them something scummy and then dobbed them in to the Enforcers, it wouldn’t have taken them this long to get here, if they bothered to come at all.

The miners passed by his perch, bickering all the way, and Drift watched them go thoughtfully. He could head back to the lighter streets, find some stray mark and make a start on stockpiling fuel again, or...

Or he could play the guide for a while, earn some credits without shorting out any more fuses. Couple of Gasket’s occasional friends had done that a time or two, snickering about the panicky Iaconian tourists scared to get too close to the really dark parts of the Dead End. Said it was pretty easy credits, but more often than not anyone down here knew what they were after, how to get it and how to get out again. Mechs didn’t come down here just to explore. If they did come down to the deep dark voluntarily...it wasn’t because they wanted to get out again.

Another slow, grinding pang of withdrawal started just under his tanks, cramping its way through his frame one system at a time, and Drift made up his mind. He’d follow them until he could run without staggering, then get the big lummox in the lead’s attention from up there so he didn’t have to come down from the roof. Easy.

Turned out the big lummox wasn’t so easy after all.

Drift wasn’t exactly at his best - not that he could really remember ever _having_ a best, but trying to stay off the syk and boosters wholesale was still doing a number on his innards even after the Medic’s whatever-it-was had purged out the worst - and he realised his mistake the moment he poked his helm over the edge of the rooftop he’d scrambled across to. 

“...hey. You.”

The heavy-duty in the lead spun around and yanked a gun the size of a minibot out of subspace, scarlet optics slitted and burning in the dark as he aimed.

_Oh sludge ME!_

Drift threw himself away from the edge of the roof, and the world exploded into purple oblivion right on his pedes. The crash and roar of the roof giving way drowned out the miner’s yells, and Drift, blind and half-conscious, went crashing down into the street with half of the building sliding with him.

*

Drift woke to an argument.

He lay still, dazed and cursing himself for an idiot - the sliding rush of the building collapsing had swept him along with it, so he wasn’t entirely buried, just beaten up to the point that his thin, pitted plating had more dents than he could remember having in a long time. Drift twitched his fingers carefully, the tiny, testing movements that wouldn’t send a comedown or hangover screaming back to life; fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders. He didn’t get into trouble until he tried to tense the cables at his hips and found out where most of those dents and crimped wires were. 

The pained clench of his body disturbing the rubble didn’t make a loud enough noise to interrupt the bulks’ argument, he _knew_ it, all the Dead End gutter trash had audials good enough to know when trouble was coming - but somehow the light patter of scrap against the bigger sheets caught their attention. Drift offlined his vocaliser and froze, utterly still in the half-light, for all the good it did. Loose metal crunched and ground under huge pedes, and Drift was quietly, almost calmly sure that he’d be meeting Gasket soon enough after all.

“You,” a voice growled, deep enough to shake Drift’s struts and send pain singing through his frame. “ _Spy._ Who sent you? The merchant, or the Barons?”

Drift blinked his optics online, squinting up at the miner in disbelief. The scowl that greeted him almost made him shut them off again, but the big mech’s fists were on his hips, at least for now.

“Not sent by nobody,” he managed, his voice hoarse and thin with poorly-hidden pain. The big mech snorted, one thick optic ridge rising in sarcastic disbelief, and Drift bared his denta in a flash of foolhardy defiance. “Not me that dropped the building.”

Someone snickered behind the big bulk. “He’s got you there, Megs.”

“Don’t _call_ me that,” the miner growled, his glower flickering away from Drift just long enough to skewer someone else. Drift shifted, ever so gently, trying to work his legs free of the rubble, and promptly flinched back down when hot red optics fixed on him again.

“If you’re not here on orders, then what do you think you’re doing following us?”

That was stupid enough to make Drift huff through his vents, pain and cramps making him snappish - if he’s going to get squashed anyway, he wasn’t going to think twice about it. “Following’s enough to drop a building? Almost think you were important.”

The big mech growled and Drift hunched as low as he could go against the rubble, but for once in his sludging life he didn’t look away and glared right back. “Not stupid, saw you were lost. Thought it’d be worth a few credits to get you out. More fool me.”

Scarlet optics fixed on his face, seeming to lock the both of them in place as the miner scrutinised what he saw. Drift gave him the best glower he could summon up - he hurt and he’d _just_ been repaired and the Medic’s work had all been ruined, this had been a dumb idea and it wasn’t his fault!

...something strange and unfamiliar flickered in the mech’s optics. Drift almost thought it looked like shame, right before the miner glanced away.

“Help me with this,” he ordered, and to Drift’s utter shock the other mechs all shuffled carefully around the rubble-slide and started to dig him out.

*

It didn’t take long to come to an agreement after that. Drift could guide the big lummoxes to the outskirts of the Dead End, as far as he knew how to go - and as far as he could guess after that, though he didn’t tell the miners as much. Seemed to make them nervous for some reason, and the biggest one had pricked what scraps remained of Drift’s pride.

You couldn’t fuel up on pride, or shoot it up to lose yourself away from what hurt, but the kindled flicker of warmth in his spark fed on the faint bits of respect and enquiry in the miners’ glances at him. He led them through the twilight layers for as far as the light reached, then plunged into the darkness with the big one - _Megatron_ \- right on his heels.

The walk was silent for the most part. Safer that way, Drift had cautioned them, though he couldn’t hide how the crunch-thump of their pedes and the roar of their vents made prickles run up and down his backstrut. Nobody would be stupid enough to jump them, but sludge and rust they were _so loud!_

He didn’t miss the little glances Megatron kept sending his way, either. Not something he’d come across - hah - in his life so far - something heavy and thoughtful that didn’t come close to lingering over his aft and port covers. He didn’t know what to make of it, but in a few cycles it wouldn’t be his problem anymore. He’d go back to the Dead End and they’d go back to wherever it was in Kaon they came from...with their gun-thing that could bring down entire buildings.

Another prickle ran up his backstrut, and he knew without looking that Megatron was watching him again.

“You manage well in the dark,” the big mech rumbled softly. “I hadn’t expected that.”

Drift grunted in return, not sure what to do with the mess of information he’d just begun to untangle before Megatron started talking. “Mostly audials. Nobody sees everything down here.”

“Hmm.” They moved in silence for a while, or as close to it as possible with the miners scuffling and swearing softly at the rough ground and the occasional tight fit. “...it can get almost as dark in Kaon, at times. We shut down the lights for the Trek to see the lights of the paints and the vents, and to confuse the sparkeaters.”

Drift snorted at that before he could think twice, and almost heard Megatron’s optic ridge rise again. “...paint don’t keep sparkeaters away, no matter what people say.”

“You’ve seen one?”

He bridled at the disbelief in Megatron’s tone, hearing mockery in it whether the mech meant it or not. “‘S the _Dead End._ Everything down here eats you. Dark, boosters, mechs, Empties, sparkeaters. Sometimes people _look_ for ‘em.”

“Why in the planet-” Megatron paused before he finished, then let out a soft “Ah.” Whatever he’d been about to say, Drift bristled at it on principle and limped along doggedly without turning back.

He’d seen a sparkeater. He’d seen a sparkeater come creeping along a Dead End street, glowing softly like a lure in the dark with the sparks in its belly swirling gently one around the other. They’d been dim and faded, and Gasket had guessed afterwards it was hungry and hunting - he’d curled up small, terrified out of his booster-addled processor, too scared to move or vent or run away, fingers denting his own arms for something to cling to. Sharp claws had gone _tick-tick-scraaape_ along the grimy floor, the sound of hissing vents dry as dust, dry as dead frames, coming closer and closer so slowly until he could see its dead, staring optics and a yawning mouth full of _fangs-_

A figure drawn in smudges of light had smashed into the sparkeater like a runaway hauler, slamming the screeching, struggling thing into the wall. She’d dug a knife into the sparkeater’s tank, pulled it across and torn it open, the weak sparks bobbling out to freedom and disappearing once they were close enough to her barely-there frame. Drift had shifted the tiniest bit, trying to make his frame respond through the sluggishness of the boosters - any lingering high had long-since fled - and her helm had snapped around, blazing optics locking with his and bright enough to blind him. He’d stumbled out of that alley-run as fast as he could and not been back since, had spent the rest of that cycle shaking in Gasket’s arms like a newbuild.

No matter how many boosters he’d downloaded afterwards, he could only banish the memory into long-term storage, not delete it entirely. For all his memory core was riddled with holes, that one seemed to lurk in the dark places, jumping out whenever the night terrors got too bad.

He’d sooner rot his processor with a booster overload than go anywhere near a sparkeater again, but he wasn’t going to knock it if that’s how a mech wanted to stop hurting. Even if they were a sludging nut.

The silence lingered for a while after that, long enough for them to skirt the biggest cavern Drift knew of in the Dead End; from the sharp intake of vents, he guessed Megatron had seen the tumbled remains of the cityformer that held up half the level above. He waited for the bigger mech to say something about it, but Megatron only paused for a long moment before moving along, thinking his own thoughts. He did speak eventually, but it wasn’t what Drift expected to hear.

“We intend to free Kaon from the Barons that rule it.”

Drift had no clue what Megatron expected him to say in response to that, and he didn’t have much of an idea of what the mech was even talking about in the first place. He knew vaguely that Kaon had Barons, the same way he knew that there were Senators in Iacon and people in Praxus had doorwings, like that one mech who slummed it in the twilight gambling dens - though apparently a reply hadn’t been expected, or maybe Megatron had just paused for dramatic effect.

“There will be no masters, no Barons, no hoarding of riches and spoils that could feed half the city-state. Freedom for all mechs, regardless of their frame type, freedom to work and own their own businesses and work for themselves. Freedom from chains in the processor, as well as the physical.” He glanced down at Drift, presumably to check his reaction, and looked rather blank when Drift only shrugged.

“Suppose you’re gonna ask nicely, huh. Or go for that gun you got there.” 

Megatron stilled, and Drift wondered if he’d overplayed his hand when he picked up the threatening rumble of more than one angry miner’s engine. “Still lost,” he warned them, skittering further ahead and turning side-on in case one of them tried to grab him. He’d got away from worse when he was damaged before, and he wouldn’t feel bad about leaving them to run dry in the dark.

He wouldn’t.

“Yes,” Megatron said after a moment, and Drift didn’t miss more than one voice going _slaggitall-!_ behind the big mech. “If we must. Sometimes freedom requires sacrifice, and I for one won’t feel one bit of regret if I have to shoot my way through the entire set of Barons.”

That sounded like a lie, but Drift guessed there was only one way to find out, and that was the hard way. He could make out enough from the glint of red optics in the dark to see Megatron’s expression - there was a hardness, a determined practicality there that reminded him of the light-sketch figure that had torn open a sparkeater so long ago.

_‘Freedom requires sacrifice.’ Do I have anything left to lose? Do I even know what being free is? I’d settle for something to eat and some repairs. ...wonder if he sees it like shooting Enforcers when your- your Gasket goes down._

“Guess that makes sense,” he allowed, and turned away before he could wonder at what his own expression had told Megatron in return.

*

“Here. A gift, for seeing us safely away.”

Drift stared, not at Megatron’s face, but at the pair of pistols gleaming dully in the miner’s broad hand in the starlight. What he knew about guns wouldn’t fill his own palm, let alone Megatron’s, but-

 _Thanks_ meant a ‘face someone thought he wanted, or credits he could use to get his own fuel - or, up until a few cycles ago, to shoot himself full of boosters. This...Drift had never had a _gift_ before. Power, vengeance, independence, a full charge... He reached out, hands not entirely steady, and kept a corner of his optic on Megatron’s frame the whole way.

Megatron didn’t even twitch, and Drift swore he saw a smile quirk the mech’s mouth as the grips settled into his palms like they belonged there.

“Aw, boss, seriously?” one of the grunts complained. “We paid _Swindle’s_ rates for those!” 

“And so we are even,” Megatron said without looking around. “A small price to pay, for another mech’s freedom.”

He straightened, and Drift instinctively clutched the pistols to his chest and flinched back in case the other mech had changed his mind. He _wanted_ this, wanted it enough to take damage that might have crippled him for it, and that meant as much to a guttermech as a gladiator. Megatron smiled, a pleased, proud smile that struck Drift to the quick, and nodded to him before turning and heading away towards the twilight dark between cities.

Drift stood there, trembling, caught on a knife-edge. He glanced back at the depths of the Dead End, the mid-levels gap they’d crawled out of seeming so much smaller now that he’d left it, then glanced up.

A scant handful of stars glittered above his head, outside of the hazing glow of Iacon’s lights and almost close enough to reach out and touch, and he remembered Gasket’s last, fading smile.

_Only one way out of the Dead End, Drift._

_Frag **that.**_

Drift tightened his arms around the guns, and limped after Megatron as fast as he could go.


	2. Kaon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatron's party - plus one additional member - eventually makes it back to Kaon, and Drift stumbles into the beginning of the worker's revolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, here is where the medical warning comes in. Nothing graphic, but Kaon has no full-strength, decent painkillers that will actually do the job, and Drift goes along with having extra protective plating bolted into his struts to - let's be honest - essentially impress Megatron. This is painful and quite possibly a bad idea. :D Don't do this at home, kids! Ratchet would be appalled.

They arrived in Kaon exhausted, low on fuel and just in time for the mine-shift to be coming off duty, surrounding them in a flood of heavy-duty frames. What Megatron and his porters had said to the mechs they were leaving behind, Drift didn’t know - all he knew was that the moment Megatron showed his face inside Kaon, they were all rushed off the roads and into some kind of spoil-pit with a medbay jammed into the side wall. He’d never seen anything like Kaon - what little he _had_ seen of it - and he’d never imagined the holes in Cybertron could go down so far. The Dead End was probably deeper than the pit, but it didn’t _look_ it. You didn’t feel the enormity of the depths when you were crammed into a street so narrow you had to turn sideways to thread through the rubble.

The medbay, at least, was vaguely familiar; dimly-lit with sputtering lights that seemed constantly on the verge of failing and smelling faintly of rust. Megatron and the heavy frames hurried into the back room at the urging of someone Drift couldn’t see, a thick irritated accent lashing them on and dragging him along in the middle of them.

“Come on, come on, get your afts in here before the overseers come - slag you all, I’m getting too old for these shenanigans!”

Once the door was shut and locked behind them, Drift glanced warily about in the half-light despite the Kaon mechs’ apparent unconcern; they sat quietly enough for long enough that more than one of the mechs actually went into recharge before the medic came back, the miners snoring like a collection of drillers as their vents rattled and buzzed. Megatron met Drift’s optics and gave him a dry smile, and that startled him enough that his lips quirked in reply.

Then the door unlocked and slid open, and a stocky mech in peeling medic-paint stood there with fists braced on his hips and a scowl on his face. “What the slag,” he informed them, and Drift quietly shrank back on the berth they were piled around. “I swear to Primus, you and all the rest have the worst timing in the pits. At least you managed to get back here at shift change!”

Drift felt Megatron tense. “What’s happened?” he snapped, and the medic _tsked_ and stepped inside so the door could close.

“Supervisors know you’ve gone,” he informed them, and Megatron’s vents hissed. “Calm down. Nothing’s happened yet, but they’ll know you’re back sooner or later. If you’ve got weapons, it’s gonna have to be soon, or they’ll start rounding mechs up.”

No-one moved. Megatron only showed that he was still functioning by his vents working, for a long moment perfectly still and silent. Then his optics flared, his fists clenched, and he stormed from the medberth to punch a dent half as long as his forearm in the medbay wall.

“Get everyone as close to fully-functional as you can,” he rapped out, the medic seeming to be utterly unsurprised at this reaction even if the miners and Drift on the berth had leaped a mile into the air. “Everyone is fully-fuelled, everyone is repaired, and by the time we have made the rounds of the pits, everyone who knows how to use a gun will be armed. I have a plan.”

“Ach, well, and that’s all we need, then,” the medic muttered, but he raised his hands and flapped at Megatron’s glare. “All right! Here, you lot, take a cube and get out.” He moved back over to the berth where the miners sat, glancing uneasily at each other, and started passing out cubes of energon.

 _Whole cubes of energon._ Drift’s fingers tightened on the edge of the berth, his dented hip twinging pain all through his pelvic structure as he leaned forward ever so slightly despite his best intentions. The medic pushed a couple of cubes into the hands of each big miner, then pushed them off the berth and towards the door in a smooth, practised motion that suggested he’d been shoving gladiators around since before Drift had been brought online - then he reached Drift, and he shoved two cubes into Drift’s dinged-up helm crest before he realised the frametype of his targets had suddenly changed.

“What the frag and all the Primes,” the medic blurted, fumbling the energon and bending down to squint at Drift in disbelief. Drift snatched both cubes up before they fell and bared his denta a little uncertainly - they were his, right? His cubes! - but the medic was already turning to Megatron in what looked an awful lot like a fit of quivering Righteous Indignation, standing up straight and pointing accusingly back at Drift. 

“WHAT the ABSOLUTE SLAG have you brought me, mech?! I can’t work with this!”

Drift’s plating flared in affront, but the effect was probably spoiled by his gulping down as much of one cube as he could before it was taken back, stuffing the other into his subspace while the medic’s back was turned. Megatron blinked as though his train of thought had been abruptly derailed, then his optic ridges drew together sharply.

“I said everyone was to be fully repaired. He was damaged escorting us from Iacon, therefore he needs repairs.”

“Oh he does, therefore, does he?” The medic scowled and rounded on Drift again, a rapid-fire scan sweeping right through him and making him shudder. The Medic in the Dead End clinic hadn’t made him feel cold like that with a scan. “Plating like tinfoil, running on empty, tanks at a fraction of what size they should be - and when’s the last time you transformed?”

Drift’s hands tightened on the cube and he pulled it closer to his chest, what he hadn’t managed to fit into his tanks sloshing around noisily. “Dunno,” he said warily, eyeing the medic up and down. “Long time ago.” Only the rare few marks wanted to ‘face a mech in his alt mode; it was easier in a lot of ways, with them not being able to get at his spike _or_ his valve or even most of his ports, but trying to get the worst of the scorch marks and transfers off wasn’t easy, even with help.

He’d never driven further than rolling a few feet across a grimy floor. He’d never had the energy.

The medic threw his hands in the air, rounding on Megatron again. “You want us all to get ready for some big push? All I can do for him, right now, is pump him full of energon and any additives we’ve got. If you’re seriously going throw him into a fight - one, you’re a numpty, and two, he’ll need armour!”

“Then we’ll find something in the gladiatorial pits,” Megatron said firmly. He rested a hand on Drift’s shoulder, and for all that Drift’s internals were churning at the thought of a fight he couldn’t run from or down in one shot, as well as from the sudden rush of energy, he made up his mind then and there that he’d agree to just about anything to have Megatron argue his corner again.

*

Drift lay awake, optics dimmed to a faint wash of orange in the constant lowlight of the pit barracks. Miners and gladiators snored and rumbled their engines and shifted about in their recharge, the occasional _clang_ of an arm or pede hitting the floor, or the wall, or another mech, not seeming to disturb any one of them. To a mech used to miserable quiet, where sudden noises meant a chop-shop thug crashing down to tear you open or Enforcers swarming the Twilight, it was an unfathomable torrent of sound.

Megatron was in recharge on the other side of the barracks, tucked into a smaller, half-buried cavity just large enough to be called another room. Drift lay there in the cacophony of buzzing vents and hitching systems for long enough to get uneasy, then gave in to the urge to shift around himself and hope that helped the withdrawal cramps. Nobody noticed, no flickering scans or slits of light came arcing his way, and that made up for what resolve he might have been lacking.

On silent pedes, he moved between the densely-packed bunks - the walkways that were barely wide enough for the heavyframes were open avenues to him - and crept into Megatron’s bunkspace.

His field was more open in recharge, thick and slow with sleep, and Drift’s threadbare one eased gently closer as he approached. Megatron recharged curled on his side, tucked into a ball, his hands folded under his chin and his legs pulled up. Wouldn’t make things easy, but Drift had worked with worse. He crouched on the edge of the bunk, what little space there was left not taken up by Megatron’s knees, and reached up.

Megatron’s hand snapped out and engulfed his hand, wrist and most of his gauntlet, and Drift panicked before he could clamp down on the reflex and stop himself from jerking against the implacable grip. Scarlet optics blazed into wakefulness before Drift could slow the sudden pounding of his pumps, and Megatron frowned.

“Drift? What’s wrong?”

Drift did his best to give him an unconcerned smile, and his spark sank when Megatron only raised an unimpressed optic ridge. “Wanted to thank you.”

...that was an outright scowl. Sludge his lines, this wasn’t going right. “You woke me to say thank you, when we’d already taken care of all that outside Iacon.”

“Not so much.” Drift reached out and flattened his free hand out over Megatron’s hip with what he hoped was a properly coy look to make his point.

Megatron didn’t move. 

They stared at each other for long enough that Drift desperately wanted to fidget and the cramps were surging up from his tanks up to his shoulders and down his thighs, and only then Megatron spoke. “Do you actually want to interface, or is this something you’re doing out of obligation?”

Drift stared. This was so far off the map in his head that he wasn’t even sure where they were anymore. “Uh?”

Megatron moved, not releasing Drift’s hand but shifting around it as he propped himself up on one elbow. His optics were deep and serious, and Drift couldn’t look away even if the idea had crossed his processor.

“Drift,” Megatron said, low and fierce. “I know what it’s like not to have control of your own frame. I _know_. And I will _never_ ask that of you, or anyone, for any reason. If you ever wanted to interface for the sake of pleasure, I would be flattered, but not like this.”

Drift stared at him, mouth open but no words coming out. Megatron sighed, then reeled him in and scooted backwards on the berth until his treads met the wall; he tucked Drift’s back against his belly, Megatron’s armour pleasantly warm against the hot prickles running up and down Drift’s backstrut, and shuffled around until his own fans were working alongside and over Drift’s own.

“Now recharge,” Megatron rumbled in Drift’s audial; Drift couldn’t quite stifle his squeak. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. We’ll talk about this at the on-shift, if we have to.”

*

The next waking cycle was quiet and tense, the pit and everything in it bowed down under a weight of suspicion and apprehension and little flickering darts of a fierce promise, heat lightning licking around the edges of an oncoming storm. Megatron stayed hidden, first in the tumbledown shelter his mechs had kept secret for him, then in the anonymity of being one miner in a thousand as the shifts changed and bodies filled the pits.

Drift had never seen so many people all at once in his life. He slipped after Megatron like an off-white wandering spark, ghosting from one shelter to the next; in some ways it was like being back in the Dead End, finding his way through the twilit piles of rubble and spoil being piled up and dug out and constantly moved from one place to another. In others it wasn’t even close. When they had to get back down the open, exposed road to the pit-side medbay, Megatron walked in amongst a press of frames to a hulking loader idling nearby, and to Drift’s utter shock ducked underneath the loader’s belly, hidden from casual glances by the mech’s treads. He dithered, not sure what to do, until a soft, carrying and overall impatient _”Hsst!”_ came from underneath the loader.

“Frag that feels weird,” the loader muttered; Drift wouldn’t have known which Kaonites were supervisors if put on the spot and asked, so he’d settled for hiding from everyone. It seemed that Megatron, at least, had known he was being followed just fine, even if he hadn’t seemed certain of where Drift was _exactly_.

The loader’s engine revved in alarm as Drift skittered out from the safety of his spoil heap and into eir shadow. Drift staggered under the onslaught of sound and vibration, but Megatron reached out and grabbed his arm and they half-slid, half climbed their way down the claggy roadway down to the pit medbay under cover of the loader’s big frame, with no supervisors the wiser.

The medic - Sawbones, Drift learned when Megatron finally called him by name - wasn’t any happier than he had been the first time Drift had seen him. He growled and cursed and thumped up and down the medbay, but he’d done what Megatron asked, and Drift could see how dim Sawbones’ optics were running from working through the night. There was a spark of triumphant satisfaction behind the exhaustion, though; when Megatron was satisfied, after asking about so many mecha that Drift couldn’t keep the names all straight in his processor, Sawbones headed over to a cabinet that looked rusted shut to the casual observer. Drift, though, didn’t hear a speck of rust on the tumblers as they unlocked, and the door swung open easily enough even as it let out a _screech_ that had him clutch at his helm in agony and made even Megatron wince.

“There,” Sawbones said rather smugly. “Like to see some glitch get in _there_ without me knowing, never mind figure out that they can open the thing at all.” 

He drew out...something, thick sheets of metal sandwiched together and printed primer-grey, with catches and locks and tiny little jacks on the insides. Megatron stood a little straighter, surprise and a fierce satisfaction of his own colouring his field, and Sawbones turned gleefully to Drift with one of the segmented sheets held out, jack-points-first.

“All right, you; let’s get you fitted up.”

*

Getting the armour on him was a struggle. It plugged into Drift’s medical ports and blocked them from view, synchronising with his own systems like the armour was a part of him; the built-in jacks locked into every single port they could reach to anchor the weight, and Sawbones growled with annoyance and sent screws right through Drift’s original plating and into his struts to bear it when his plating and tensors couldn’t. Even with the pain patches Drift didn’t manage to stifle a scream the first time, or the second, but on the third he was panting heat from every vent and throbbing all over like the worst of the Syk cramps mixed in with the high. It _hurt,_ and the feeling of something locked into his ports made him want to purge his tanks at first, but...

It was warm. And strong, and safe, and he looked a little like Megatron wearing the same primer-grey and black. No-one could get to his ports, _any_ of his ports; the sensor net on the armour worked better than his own battered one, the extra inches of protection and additional systems drew out the worst of the cramps away from his own over-clocked, under-fuelled frame and made it easier to bear - he was impenetrable, and this armour was _his._

He was shaking all over by the time Sawbones finished, unable to stand where the plating had been screwed onto his legs, and the medic scoffed and half-lifted him up onto the worn medberth to let him collapse.

“Here,” Sawbones said roughly, shoving a cube under Drift’s nose a moment later. Drift blinked at him, slow and stupid, and Sawbones huffed before grabbing one of Drift’s wrists and pushing the cube into his hands. Drift got distracted staring at his hands for a moment - worn, scuffed, stupidly skinny and mottled compared to the smooth monochrome of the armour - and only then looked at the contents of the cube.

“...the _frag,_ ” he blurted, tilting the horrible mess to watch it move in reluctant fascination. It didn’t ripple like even the worst energon Drift had seen; bits of it _jiggled_ in gobs of strained pink, worming through the thicker sludgy mass that _glooorped_ from one side of the cube to the other in ponderous slow motion. Sawbones flapped a hand at him, clearly with no patience to coax another patient into drinking after a brutal career of doing exactly that for little enough reward.

“Additives,” he said briskly. “It’ll taste awful but get those plates and screws rooted in like they’re your own faster than anything else you can think of, so it’s better on everyone if you just down the glop instead of dragging it-”

Drift tipped the cube back, screwing up his face and let the mess slide into his mouth, swallowing continuously to force the cube down his intake in one long mouthful. 

“...out,” Sawbones said weakly, colour leeching from his optics as he watched. Megatron’s optic ridges hit his helmet, and when the medic turned to him to gesticulate in wordless do-not-even, Megatron only smirked at him before turning back to Drift.

“It seems you are an exemplary patient,” he said in no small amusement, and Drift gave him a crooked, wincing lipquirk in return as he tried not to gag.

*

That offcycle was one of the most painful of Drift’s life. His systems kept trying to revolt against the over-stretched tankful of cement-mix additives Sawbones had given him, even as they burned through the long-overdue and desperately needed materials; his self-repair bore down on the new metal added to his struts and pain stabbed up and down Drift’s legs and through every support strut in his frame until he was unable to keep still for long, shifting restlessly on the berth with his vocaliser offline.

Still, when Megatron came back to the medbay after a shift’s worth of whispers in audials and furtive gatherings, Drift was awake and aware enough to talk - or, rather, to listen and nod his understanding as Megatron pulled up pictures of supervisors and overseers, leaders of work gangs and the Barons themselves.

“Events are moving fast,” Megatron said, scarlet optics fierce and hungry as he scrutinised the datapad and Drift watched his face. “When the time comes, we will need to move quickly.”

In the quiet that followed, Drift reset his vocaliser and tried to find words through the wild spin of his spark. “Won’t let you down,” he managed, and swore at himself for how thin the words sounded next to Megatron’s rumbling purpose - but Megatron darted a glance at him and smiled proudly, and maybe Drift’s shortcomings wouldn’t matter. Not if he could do this.

He’d killed Enforcers to avenge Gasket, stupid with the comedown from Syk and unable to even think straight. Now, with his armour soaking up some of the worst after-effects of avoiding boosters and his self-repair boosted from Sawbones’ horrible, _horrible_ additive sludge, he’d do it on purpose. Show Megatron he wasn’t wrong to let Drift tag along. Show him that Drift was worth the armour Sawbones had scrounged from the arena. Show him that Drift was worth keeping around afterwards, if he could just think of something he could do when _afterwards_ came.

Show everyone that he wouldn’t stay down when he was kicked, ever again.

*

When the revolt came, it came all at once. Drift barely remembered how it happened after the fact - Sawbones came roaring from the back room of the medbay only cycles after Megatron had left, grabbed Drift by his scruffbar and burst out of the door into what had become the living Pit on Cybertron.

There had been a tide of frames fighting back and forth, scattered blasterfire and a constant roaring, loud and jangling with screams as mechs fell to damage. Scattershot images remained behind, when Drift tried to straighten out the memory files after - workers pouring cauldrons of boiling slag onto enforcer-thugs trying to push a lower-level line of miners back into the pits; one of the mechs Megatron had identified as a Baron lashing out around him with an electrified crop, sending a minibot spinning away screaming and clutching their face; Megatron, rearing out of the madness, rallying and leading the gladiators into a charge.

Drift had lost Sawbones almost instantly, he remembered that much. There had been a confusion of frames many times his size, trampling pedes and a torrent of roiling slag, and he’d found himself half-way up a spoil heap - Megatron was in the thick of the fighting on the other side of the pit, pushing to take and hold one of the bridges, and a mech in the overseers’ colours had swung a shovel up to lunge at him.

Drift had fired before thinking twice.

Megatron turned as the mech’s head exploded into shrapnel, scarlet optics snapping tightly shut and helm ducking against the flying debris, and Megatron punched another overseer staggering back from the ruin of their friend’s helm without needing to look.

It set a pattern, if the flash-fire memories Drift had retained were anything to go by. Snapshots of fire and movement - one memorable one of jamming his pistol under the jaw of a mech he’d had to rock onto the tips of his pedes to reach, blowing their head off before they could react to him appearing there - until, all at once, he blinked and the world resolved into a wasteland of collapsed frames and the cries of injured mechs, slag and roil and smoke everywhere he looked.

_...what now..?_

_Find Megatron._

It didn’t take long. Megatron was scarred and dented, char and blaster burns marring his armour, but he was whole and on his pedes and ordering the seizure of the pits before whatever forces the remaining Barons could summon could reach them. Drift pushed his way over, stumbling and aching - had he been damaged? - but doggedly making his way to Megatron’s side. The big miner raised an optic ridge when he saw Drift, but he didn’t look surprised at all. 

“Drift,” he greeted, and Drift stood straighter through the haze of exhaustion and dislocation that was slowly turning the world grey around the edges. “Thank you.”

Simple enough words, enough to keep Drift online and coherent as Megatron organised the gladiators and the miners and what precious few medics had come running from the arena pits, splitting the medics up to tend to the damaged mechs and the other Kaonites who were able to make sure that all the fallen overseers would stay down. A volunteer shift of loaders and diggers and anyone with the tanks for it took the Barons’ mechs’ frames to the smelter, ready to be melted down where the people they had oppressed could witness their recycling.

“This won’t be the end of it,” Megatron said matter-of-factly, and Drift blinked at him. “There will be more. The Barons won’t give up so easily, and they have resources and friends outside of Kaon.”

It took a while to sink in, but Drift realised that Megatron was trying to nudge him away. Kindly, maybe, so Megatron might have thought. His vocaliser locked up, and before he could start making strangled, pleading noises, one of the downed overseers yet to be loaded up pushed up onto one elbow, optics sputtering but fixed on Megatron like a target lock.

Drift’s arm snapped up and blew a hole in his face. 

Now Megatron was staring, silent long enough for a nearby red gladiator to yell at the others. “Hurry it up! Some of them are only playing dead - make it real, mechs!”

“Not going anywhere,” Drift said, his voice shaking and unsteady. How could he make Megatron understand - this wasn’t what he’d thought his future would be, since he’d never thought he’d _have_ a future. Megatron had _given_ him one, all he wanted was to be worth keeping-

But Megatron was laughing, adrenaline and relief and amazement mixing in his voice, and a heavy hand clapped down on Drift’s shoulder and gripped tight. 

“I believe you,” Megatron told him, and in his smile Drift saw that he wouldn’t be left behind. “Your marksmanship is astounding, but your hand-to-hand is atrocious. Who taught you?”

Drift shook himself, dazed and swaying a little on his pedes under the weight of Megatron’s hand, despite locking his joints from hip to ankle. “Taught?”

“...well. That gives us something to work on later, then.” Megatron’s grin was fierce, optics bright and all for Drift. “There are many more battles ahead.”

*

Megatron hadn’t been wrong, or exaggerating in the slightest. Kaon wasn’t free yet - after that first fight Drift’s life was a series of running battles, skirmishes with knots of supervisors and overseers and the Baron’s hired enforcers, to the point where the Kaonites found themselves recharging in shifts and pushing up close together for safety. Drift had never known anything like it - he’d recharged back-to-back with Gasket more than once, sometimes with a scavenged rag of a tarp they’d found and held on to as long as they could, but this...

He was taller than the Kaonite minibots, but any one of them could have folded him in half without trying, even with the armour. He was lanky compared to them, but that just meant he could tuck himself up into a ball in between the frames of those he trusted the most and bask in the warmth of their frames. He’d never known what he was missing, even if it was hard to recharge through. Drift would wind up napping on and off through the cycle when he was supposed to be on breaks and lying awake when the others took their recharge shifts, looking up at what distant stars could be seen through the murk of atmosphere and Kaon’s lights. It made the working cycles worth it.

The withdrawal pangs hadn’t entirely gone away, for all they came less and less often over time. Once he’d adjusted to the boost the armour gave his systems, once it had integrated properly with his frame, the shakes and aching crept back in - not as strong as when he’d first turned away from boosters back in the Dead End, but some cycles it seemed never-ending, a long draining series of cramps that knotted his tanks and made him sullen and snappish.

Megatron helped there, too. There was always something to do, and if Drift fell behind or struggled to lift what he’d been carrying around the cycle before without effort, or if Drift hurt enough to tell him bluntly what Drift was thinking, Megatron argued with him or complained alongside him or told him to switch duties with someone else. When Drift recovered enough to hit panic at what he’d said, it was something of a shock to find out that the mechs he’d swapped duties with or snarled at just shrugged at him.

“What, that? You’re bothered about that? That’s nothing, forget it. You wanna swap and take my watch shift again?”

Kaon was weird, and Drift gradually began thinking that he liked it. If people would just stop shooting at them...

...well, no. Shooting _back_ was something he fast found that he was _good_ at, good enough that mechs started slapping him on the back or the shoulder and _thanking_ him for it. The first time someone had touched him after a firefight he’d taken a swipe at them, prickly and jumpy and expecting the sting of a siphon in his neck, but after that...

Mechs touched each other _so much_ here. And it wasn’t even for ‘facing. One of the miners - a big mech, whose name ( _Demolishor_ ) he learned later - had asked if he wanted to, straight out, and hadn’t even blinked when Drift bristled and pulled away.

“That a no? Aww... Okay, no problem. You gonna come fuel up?”

Kaon was very, very weird, but when it got around that he wasn’t interested in ‘facing...nobody asked him again.

It was a revelation. 

He was given fuel just because he was there and joining in on the firefights. If that was all he needed to pay for this, lifting stuff and watching for trouble and shooting mechs with the wrong colour paint, if that got him fuel and company and open appreciation and nobody pushing to ‘face him...

This was a whole new world. He’d do a lot worse for that.


	3. Iacon - The Senate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their arrival in Iacon is noisy, noticeable and busy. Drift shadows Megatron, mostly to try and keep Orion out of trouble, until he's blindsided by an old, familiar face.
> 
> And by what the Towers consider proper fuel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, one quick warning this time around, guys - bad choices are made in terms of fuel, and while it's not actual up-through-the-mouth being sick, there are people having adverse reactions to what they've eaten. It's more like... Has everyone seen the Diet Coke and Mentos trick? Like that, and having emergency valves for your tank that open at your sides or your back to get rid of the bubbles. Hopefully less squicky, but pls be warned.

Of all the minor miracles the Iaconian docker had managed in the short time Drift had known him, making it from Iacon to Kaon and back again pretty much unscathed was a good one; that said, finding His Medic in the Senate chambers was the one that rattled Drift the most.

It was _him._ After all this time, so many miles and so many new faces, there he was - half-strangled in the stupid robes the Senate forced on their petitioners, brilliant blue optics crackling with protective fury, with all the strength Drift remembered from the Dead End. Drift had kept his head down and his processor on what was happening, but when he overheard the medic’s name at long last, the hopeless gutter mech he’d once been had rolled over and bared his throat.

_Hi, doc. Remember me?_

He couldn’t say it. Not now, not with so much happening and all of them having to stay sharp - and definitely not _here._ Maybe later, when Orion got his pede jammed in the door and had more people watching his back - reliable people, ones him and Megatron could vet to work alongside the twins. Drift wasn’t stupid enough to get sloppy, not without the rumble of Syk in his systems and boosters messing with his head. If a Senate goon managed to hit Orion or Megatron now...

_Not going to happen. Won’t let it._

And - and a core part of him was still afraid. Ratchet had been the first person to see any worth in him after Gasket’s murder, and he’d clung to that memory and to Megatron’s strength through the withdrawal pangs and the purges and recharge terrors that came with them. Ratchet thought he was special. One medic who’d never even known his name, who wouldn’t take any offer he could make to pay for what he owed, who’d treated him kindly...Drift would have done anything for Ratchet to look at him that way again.

That was then. Now, Drift kept his head down, avoided Ratchet as best he could and circled around behind Orion and Ratchet, dogging Megatron’s steps. Boss wasn’t stupid, he could feel Megatron’s optics sharp on him however he pretended he couldn’t, but - not now. Not yet.

Let him gather up his courage first.

Bad enough that they paraded to the Iaconian Deep Temple with what felt like the whole population of Cybertron screaming loud enough to deafen a mech - Drift might have been able to adjust his optics with little enough difficulty, but he _hated_ having to tone down his audials. It was almost a relief when they had to race for the Temple's closing doors, pushing into the great round hall and close to the lump of crystal in the centre of the room. Drift fell into line with the twins, covering Megatron and Orion and Ratchet, always Ratchet, it all came back to Ratchet in the end...

Then the Temple crystal’s blue glow surrounded Orion, and for a moment Drift thought Megatron’s spark had actually stopped. All that halted a mad charge and Megatron smashing the crystal to bits was the soft hum just on the edge of hearing, one that sharpened warningly when a gaggle of priests tried to push past the twins and get to Orion. They’d agreed beforehand not to shoot anyone _too_ much when they entered Iacon, so they settled for just knocking the priests around and making sure they _stayed down_ \- it both helped and freaked everyone out when the blue glow crystallised around Orion, and it was only hearing him speak afterwards that calmed Megatron down. Still, it didn’t help anyone trust anything _at all_ in the Temple - aside from Orion, naturally. Drift stoppered his audials against too much talking about Primus and signs and focussed on what needed doing, at least until Orion got his bearings again.

When the big mech had caught his balance again, Orion had his work cut out for him. He stayed in the great round hall quizzing priests and making friends in that easy way of his, the twins and Ratchet sticking close and helping to keep the crowd of accidental witnesses from having a religious moment. Megatron and Drift, on the other hand, headed back out to the main doors to let the rest of their people in before there was a riot. The cameramechs they’d run into on Iacon’s streets had stayed with Orion, broadcasting the whole thing, and the twins would keep him safe if Orion himself got too caught up in things to pay attention.

Who would keep Drift safe from Megatron’s suspicious face, on the other hand, was unclear.

“We let the people in,” Megatron rumbled, long strides eating up the oversized hallway, “and then you can tell me just what it is about the medic that has you so distracted.”

Drift bristled, just on principle, then gave it up with a shrug. He _was_ distracted, for all that he’d been able to skim over it so far, and they knew each other too well by now for Megatron to take offence. Or to leave it alone, come to that.

“It’s him,” Drift said quietly, and felt Megatron’s attention snap back to him. “He’s the Medic.”

Megatron’s optic ridges furrowed, then shot skywards until they all but disappeared under the ridge of his helm. “ _The_ medic? ...you mean the one from your clinic?”

“Yeah.”

Drift said nothing more, too busy keeping an optic on their surroundings as the odd priest scrambled past, or popped out of hidden doors to scurry off to see the new Prime. He had no illusions that he wouldn’t be getting interrogated later, but now Megatron had something solid to chew on rather than grasping at atmosphere. Wouldn’t help any of them if the boss was distracted, and then Megatron had enough to think about on his own after meeting Orion's Ariel and Dion.

*

Until now, Drift had thought of Iacon’s elite in terms of vague distant figures - like the Senate, or Primus. Plenty of people seemed to think they existed, but the reality of them had always been too much to sink into his processor. He simply couldn’t imagine that kind of effortless luxury - always being clean and fed, always having your paint cover all of your base metal, not having to frag anyone you didn’t want to get what you need? That was so far out of his reach he might as well try to touch a star.

(He’d tried, more than once according to Gasket. He’d get high on whatever he could afford and fall over if he wasn’t down already, spreading his fingers out to touch the stars that glinted through the gaps in the levels overhead. There was a reason why the frame of a long-dead cityformer was his second-safest place in the Dead End, for all that he couldn’t quite bear to linger there after Gasket died; it was high enough and creepy enough that few people went there, and the sinkhole in the levels above gave a guttermech the only glimpse of the stars they thought they’d ever see. 

Drift had known no-one would be there to be patient with his slag-stupid giggly aft or hold him through a bad trip ever again, after Gasket died. The stars were out of his reach.)

The Senate’s compound was one thing. He’d been expecting some kind of cold grandeur, the distant manipulation and calculation of the Senate mechs that made them easy to hate, but the Towerlings...

It was easy not to trust the Senators as far as he could throw them, and hate them for what they failed to do and what they kept for themselves. What Drift hadn’t expected was just how fast and how deeply he could loathe the shallow, snickering idiots who looked at Orion, looked at _Megatron_ like they were something they would as soon scrape off the bottom of their pedes and flick away. Drift was used to that feeling - it had taken a slaggin’ long time for him to believe Megatron wouldn’t do the same thing sooner or later - but seeing those scornful looks and simpering little snickers turned on the others? That got his coolant boiling, and the sheer effort of will it had taken to not start yelling and smashing things like the scum they thought he was-

Frag it all, _not helping._

Orion wasn’t stupid. Megatron wasn’t stupid. They’d fix the Towers, they’d fix the Senate, and even if it took him the rest of his functioning he’d _show them_ just how stupid they’d been for looking down at anyone at all.

Drift rather thought it was an act of mercy that had him and Sideswipe respectively scoping out the Prime’s and Senate’s Compounds instead of sticking them with the others. Diplomacy was hardly a strong point of his, and he was pretty sure most of the making-nice with the Towers would have wound up with him gritting his denta together and growling at people. His denta were jagged and broken enough, they didn’t need any help on that front, and Orion would do better being all cuddly at people with the others there to remind him that he _did_ have a temper of his own. Drift ran his glossa over the sharp point of a fang, ground into viciousness from the fuel crystals he’d grown used to in Kaon and had scrounged for in the Dead End, and set himself to his own appointed task - find every single hiding place and secret passageway he could fit into. When he was done, they’d be able to move wherever they liked through the Senate compound, and into the currently-locked-away Prime’s one too.

Good luck trapping them _then._

*

It was late by the time the others got back from meeting the Towerlings. Sideswipe had stomped into Orion’s quarters in the Senate’s diplomacy wing and thrown himself onto the berth in an exhausted sulk, and let out what was so very much a shriek when Drift poked him in the ankle.

“GAH! -slaggitall Drift I _swear_ you do this on purpose-”

“Maybe,” Drift admitted with a hint of a grin - Sunstreaker might have been his absolute favourite twin, but Sideswipe was fun, even when he was pouting and huffing all his vents at once. “Find anything good?”

“Like fun I did.” Sideswipe threw his arms out wide and flopped back down on his face, then wiggled like a plaintive newbuild. “Nobody would talk to me! No servers, no porters, no nothing. I only figured out where the Prime’s Compound was ‘cause somebody gave me directions without looking up first, and then I had to reassure them like a million times I wouldn’t get them in trouble with an aide or a Senator or something! This place is rusty to the _core._ ”

“Truth,” Drift nodded. He hadn’t bothered asking anyone at all, sticking to the smaller passageways and finding his way up and out to the surface - looking out from atop the cliff that squashed down onto the Dead End had made his tanks roil, and not from hunger alone. The drop to the docks and below he could ignore easily enough; the Towers, as multifaceted and glittery as they were, he couldn’t pass over, and he’d made a crude gesture at them with both hands to try and feel better. It hadn’t helped much, but defiance felt better than waiting around. “Find any fuel?”

“There’s, like, commissary type things for the guard and prep spaces for the servers to make stuff up for the fancy ‘do’s they put on, but a lot of it’s catered. Which sucks. Like frag is anyone going to give us a code for any of the dispensers, and I don’t see any cubes lying around here, do you?”

“Nope. Pretty sure they’re gonna try and get us eating each other before they give us fuel.” Sideswipe snorted at the words, then belatedly realised from Drift’s expression that he hadn’t been kidding. Fortunately Orion and the others filed in shortly after - worn out, worn down and dispirited, which was no surprise to anyone. One pleasant surprise had been the staggering variety of weird-shaped goodies they’d managed to stuff into their subspace pockets, and while Sideswipe was all for trying one of every single kind, Drift butted in first. They split the goodies between them, rationed them out - Megatron warning everyone against the ones that looked like what he called ‘boats’ and Drift called ‘sparkly puffs, what the frag, that ain’t a transport and I ain't sure it's fuel’. The warning was appreciated, and apparently Drift’s expression when he bit into the thing was something to behold.

Still, fuel was fuel, and Drift had certainly topped off on worse. Nobody’d had to lick a pipe to get it, unless you counted having to go to the slaggin’ stupid party in the first place, and they all settled on top of the obscene-sized berth in something like comfort.

Something like, anyway. Drift lay awake, soaking in the soothing mesh of fields around him - Orion’s two docker friends were all right and he could respect anyone who gave Megatron what-for without backing down, for all that the sniping could get annoying, and their fields were as dense and warm as Orion’s - and rubbing a palm slowly over the faintly uncomfortable amount of weirdness in his tank. He almost slid into recharge for a change, but as the off-shift settled into deep levels of recharge for everyone else, his tank started to complain. Quietly at first, little warning pings complaining about the mishmash of textures and flavourings and all fraggin’ else in the goodies, and that Drift could ignore - there were worse things than a bit of tank-gripes over funny fuel. But it didn’t stop there; his vents started to labour at the surges of erratic and too-high heat the uneven mix in his tank was fuelling, his tank constricting to try and bully the stuff into submission and _process already_ , bringing on sharp, stabbing pains that made Drift’s spark sink. He tried curling into a ball, but it didn’t help - that just trapped his few unblocked vents against his own frame, or someone else’s, and it made his head spin as the sickeningly familiar sensation of his tank foaming up kicked in.

_Oh smelt me down, noooo..._

This wasn’t the gutters, he wasn’t about to let his tank seals fail with other people around and splatter sludge all over a clean slaggin’ berth-

Drift hauled himself up and over Megatron’s legs, pausing for a moment on the edge of the berth as an eerily familiar carbonating sort of noise came from his boss’ midsection, then bolted unsteadily for the washracks. _If we all had the same stuff - oh frag, we’ll all be voiding out._

As it was, Drift barely made it into the washracks before the seals on his tank gave - caustic thickly-pink bubbles broke through the panels on his sides, and his legs promptly turned to rubber. _Every slaggin’ time,_ he lamented, and slapped at the washrack controls with a shaking hand before he stumbled to the floor. 

Time got away from him as the cleanser beat down, the rush of liquid going from scalding heat that was at least the same temperature _all over_ to something absolutely frigid. It was miserable, but Drift’s tanks wouldn’t stop foaming up and the sluggishly-glowing mess kept frothing down his plating, washing away down the drain. It didn’t help that his bolted-on armour blocked all but the two vents at his sides, forcing all the backed-up misery to divert back into his tank and out _that_ way instead of _this_ way, and Drift was too busy shaking and cramping and locking his arms around himself to notice when he wasn’t alone anymore.

“Drift?”

 _Fraggit fraggit fraggit!_ “Think that fuel was bad,” he offered thickly, his optics flickering over Orion and looking for the same signs as the big mech knelt beside him.

“If it was, we’d all be sick,” Orion said, and Drift was about to start frowning when he continued, “I’m waking Megatron.”

“No!” Drift hissed in utter thoughtless denial. “Don’t, don’t wake him for this.” _Not if Megatron was going to have the same trouble later - let him recharge and maybe it won’t be so bad-_

“Drift, you’re shaking,” Orion said far too gently, and his big worried optics only got sadder and more anxious when Drift tensed up to hide his shakes. It didn’t help. “All right. All right, I won’t call Megatron. Do you want me to call a medic instead?”

Drift almost lifted into orbit with the force of his indignation. “And let them th-think they _got_ to me?” he snapped, then his tank roiled and creaked warningly and Drift gave up on everything in favour of blocking the world out behind his huddle. “Just leave me alone.”

It took long enough for Orion to take a hint - he didn’t need to be _coddled_ \- but eventually the big mech shifted about ready to stand. “All right,” he said quietly. “Do you want me to change the heat settings?” 

“Don’ bother,” Drift said without looking up. “Ran out a while back.” _Must have been in here a while if Orion’s up already-_

Then there was a solid _thump-thump_ that carried over Drift’s misery and the hiss of the solvents. Drift’s head snapped up at the familiar pedefalls, and his spark sank as Megatron slumped against the washracks’ doorframe, optics adjusting unevenly and squinting in the cold light. He looked worse than Drift felt, though Drift couldn’t see any streaks of- whup, nevermind. Megatron let out a subvocal groan and wrapped his free arm around himself, and sure enough a double set of panels low on his sides popped open, bubbling up with half-processed fuel. Drift was moving before he could think about it, for all that the moment he tried to stretch his legs out he had to pull them right back in before he tore something; between the cramps and the cold he would up sliding and scrabbling over the washrack floor like an idiot, but at least he’d _be_ there. That was all he’d ever wanted when he was purging - no wordy worrying, just someone reassuring standing watch over him to make sure he didn’t hurt himself, or get jumped. Drift was willing to bet Megatron was the same.

“Bad fuel,” he heard Megatron groan from overhead, then Orion let out a huff.

“That’s it,” Orion declared, “I’m calling Ratchet.”

Drift’s optics widened. _Wait. What?_

*

Even called in at some miserable time of the off-cycle Ratchet was a powerhouse, the gentleness in his hands and the depth of how much he cared making Drift lean towards the medic like - like something he’d never known, something he didn’t have words for. And the last thing he’d wanted was to see Ratchet again when Drift was curled up into a ball, streaked with his own purged fuel and shaking like an idiot, but at least Ratchet had zoned in on Megatron first - even if Drift didn’t have it in him to compose himself, he could at least subtly try and scrub off some of the gunk as Megatron groaned and growled and Ratchet snarked right back at him without a hint of fear.

_Smelt me, he’s amazing._

Then the cleanser shut off and Ratchet’s pedes were right in front of him and Drift just - couldn’t.

“Hey.” Oh, oh no, that was the voice he’d _dreamed_ about hearing again, warm and gentle and so _kind,_ and here Drift couldn’t even lift his head without shaking. Ratchet knelt beside him, setting down something solid and heavy that Drift couldn’t see on the washracks' floor. “Hey, you’re gonna be okay. I’m gonna take a quick sample of that fuel, then we can work on getting you warmed up and back to the berth, all right?”

“S-sure,” Drift managed, and forced himself to look up so that Ratchet didn’t think he was a total moron, but what he was going to do if Ratchet recognised him...he had no idea. Ratchet’s face hadn’t changed, and he was so close - nothing like seeing him in the Senate audience chamber - and Drift couldn’t say a word as Ratchet rested a comforting hand on Drift’s shoulder, his other hand dabbing up some of the carbonated gunk.

“I’ve got something in my kit that should help with the purging, but for now stay where you are and let it run its course. Smart thinking, heading for the washracks.”

_He doesn’t recognise me._

_He said I was **smart.**_

“Thanks,” Drift croaked, and soaked up Ratchet’s smile with wide optics as the medic stood and turned to head back into the suite. Only when Ratchet was well out of sight did he start smacking his helm against his knees, to Megatron’s visible and growing amusement.

*

After all that, Megatron went and _hired Ratchet._ Drift didn’t know whether to thank him or kick his aft. He still couldn’t quite bear to stay away from the medbay halls, peering at the stocky white frame whenever Ratchet hove into view, but never quite dared to let himself be seen or speak to the medic. Drift was something useful now; Megatron and Orion needed him, but what could he possibly have that Ratchet might want? What reason could he give for Ratchet to stick around outside of work?

Maybe if he kept quiet a while longer, he’d be able to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...little reference to SlimReaper's Dratchet fics in the 'licking a pipe' comment there, because Iopelefic is awesome.


	4. Iacon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift explores the Iaconian Enforcer facilities and meets another Senate bodyguard. It goes...particularly poorly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will say upfront that I'm not a fan of the Drift/Wing pairing, mostly because Wing's actions in the comics right royally skeeve me out. In this AU both of them are much, much younger than in canon; Drift is very oblivious and Wing has read far too many terrible romance novels, which leads to many crossed wires, cultural misunderstandings and yelling, and what Drift would call harassment if he'd figured it out sooner. Wing approaches poorly, Drift responds poorly, and the seedy side of Iaconian assumptions appears. Pls be warned.

It still blew Drift’s processor to have an entire training floor devoted to shooting things to frag and back, let alone all the other specialised gear and the dozens of practise rooms leading off of the main space; he’d only wandered in the first time because he had to do _something_ with the downtime Megatron had ordered him to take, and he had had no idea what else he was supposed to do when he wasn’t working. 

Blowing up targets with the paint blanks he’d had to swap out his live ammo for got boring after a while, so he’d started wandering around and peering at what the other mechs using the place were doing. Seemed to annoy the frag out of Ironhide, but avoiding the mech wasn’t hard when they were on opposite sides of the training floor, and it gave Drift something else to do while he was here. He’d learned a few sneaky tricks no-one would expect of him that way, as well as a few what-not-to-dos.

This time around Ironhide was bawling at some luckless newbies who didn’t know which end of a pistol was which. Drift snickered to himself and watched for a while, but aside from Ironhide’s tired insults nothing interesting happened. Pushing away from the barrier at the side of the room, he ambled back into the open main section of the training floor; there were guardsmechs whacking each other with poles, guardsmechs with energy shields charging into big squashy crash dummies, a handful of odds-and-ends waving sharps around...

Bored and vaguely intrigued by the long knives on display, Drift skirted the crash dummy group and headed towards that particular section of the floor. The small group was watching their instructor with avid optics - there had been a space reserved for fighting or something, Drift remembered, a couple of guardsmechs had been bickering about it outside of the training centre when he’d arrived. _Fighting demonstration with a designed swordsmech,_ one of them had read out with a scoff, and while he hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.... A few of the gladiators who’d been in the arena had specialised in swords and offered to teach him the basics, but they’d never found one that suited Drift - he’d always preferred knives, and never you mind how short his reach might have been with them. He could throw almost as well as he could shoot.

Eh. Drift could work with whatever he had. Knives and serrated metal shards had been his Dead End protection, such as it was - now, with a pistol in his hand, he could hit any target he was pointed towards and stab them if they tried to get back up again. Still, no harm in checking it over.

The instructor was vaguely familiar, now that Drift was close enough to get a good look - a flier in white and red paint, yellow optics, and Drift thought the mech normally stuck close to one of the minor Senators - Senator Dai Cast? Something like that. Iaconian by way of Uraya. Pretty sure the smaller flier had to be a bodyguard or staffer of one sort or another to be in here and waving that sword around; he wouldn’t get into the training floor at all without some kind of martial-type job or a mentor to sponsor him, if he wasn’t an Enforcer himself. Drift wouldn’t have even tried if Megatron hadn’t huffed and practically shoved him through the door to burn off some energy. 

Still...couldn’t hurt to see what the flier could do, come to that, just in case Drift had to put him down sometime. He still wasn’t convinced the Senate was going to behave, and most of them had their own little bands of mercs and thugs in pretty plating pretending to play nice. There was a barrier along the side of the training area here too, and Drift folded his arms and leaned against it to watch.

“Lesson One is mindfulness,” the flier was saying. “You must be aware of your surroundings to use them effectively. Open your sensors to the world around you, block nothing out - be at one with your frame, harmonise with everything around you.”

_Doesn’t sound much like the other drill instructors. Impactor would have him for a snack in a bar fight, and the gladiators would snap him in half while he was being all **mindful**._

Drift shifted his elbows along the barrier, not missing the flicker of bright optics his way. The flier beamed at him, open and friendly and _assessing_ , and Drift’s armour clamped a little tighter to his frame. “Oh! It seems we have another pupil! Come along and be welcome, you’ve not missed too much.”

Drift flicked a hand at him, warding off the words and the too-bright enthusiasm with the threat of a scowl hovering around his optics. “Just watching. That a problem?”

The flier tilted his head, flaring his yellow optics on and off high-vis at Drift like he had a short somewhere. It made him look like someone had whacked him over the head with one of the guardsmechs’ sticks, and Drift snickered to himself. _Probably thinks he’s being cute. Chrome-aft._

“Not at all. After all, aren’t we all here to learn?” the flier said, and Drift twitched irritably at the sticky-sweet tone. _Not stupid! Didn’t say I was a newbie!_ “We are all students of the galaxy; no knowledge is wasted knowledge.”

“Is such a thing as wasted time, though,” Drift said acidly, and made to move away. The mech’s fluttering and vague instructions were only going to annoy him, and if he was going to get worked up it might as well be over something more interesting. Then the flier called out, and Drift paused to glance back over his shoulder. 

“Are you the kind to just rush in, then, and hope strength wins over skill?”

“Depends on the skill,” Drift replied after a wary moment, turning side-on to the mech just in case _he_ got rushed. He might only have the regulation training-floor blanks in both his pistols, but Megatron and the others had taught him to fight with more than that. “Why?”

The flier smiled as though he’d just got exactly what he wanted. “Because I think this is a perfect learning opportunity. I’m willing to wager that I’ll beat you in a fight.”

...all right, maybe this would be interesting after all, if maybe heading for dents. Drift turned back to the little group, shifting his weight ready to brace himself, and the flier smiled as though he’d won already, smug and slow and satisfied. Drift’s fists tightened.

“Fine,” he growled. _Definitely gonna be dents. The **good** kind._

_The Kaon kind._

“Wonderful!” the mech chirped, clapping his hands; Drift blinked. _Is it?_ “All right, everyone behind the barrier, please. Now, duelling is a microcosm of how to fight in battle,” he added as the mismatched audience scurried out of harm’s way, “and as such is afforded the proper respect and ritual.”

Drift stood and listened in growing surprise - and no small amount of disdain. He had never heard anything so fragged up in his _life._ This wasn’t like listening to the mechs in Uraya, the superstitious and the bath-masters who had rituals for every little thing to keep their world on an even tilt - this was piling decoration onto something straightforward until it was unrecognisable. This vapour-for-brains had either never got into a real fight before or had the worst case of fuzzy optimism Drift had ever seen. Megatron would smack the flier silly if he could hear any of this; all that sludge about mincing around with manners and not hitting a mech when they were down was the kind of shiny-opticed thinking that got mechs killed in the arena, thinking they were being noble. This idiot would be on the fast-track to shrapnel if he went near the rougher bits of Iacon, let alone the Kaon pits!

He stood waiting for the mech to get on with it, idly fingering the guns at his hips and getting more and more annoyed at himself for getting tangled up in the whole thing, when a thought occurred to him. 

“Hey. You. Designation?”

The flier turned with another of those chrome-shiny, fluttery smiles. “Oh! My apologies, you weren’t here when we introduced each other. My name is Wing, Knight of the Circle of Light and first bodyguard to Senator Dai Atlas-”

_Dai Atlas. **That** was the name. Well, that’s one loose processor loop killed off._ “First rule in a real fight,” Drift interrupted, to the flier’s visible consternation. “Don’t talk too much.” One pistol snapped up as he spoke, and Wing jerked away from the movement on instinct - straight into Drift’s second shot. Wing staggered back with his expression shock-blank, gaping and wide opticed under the full-face splatter of purple paint.

“That, that,” he sputtered, then scrubbed at his mouth and spat as paint met glossa. “Bleh! That’s _cheating!_ You didn’t wait for-”

“Second rule. Cheating stops you being dead.” Drift crossed the floor at a run, meeting Wing’s flustered, half-blind block with his favourite knife pulled from subspace and held reverse in his free hand. The other jammed his pistol up under Wing’s short chestplate and fired another three paint pellets point-blank into his open vents before pushing _hard_ against Wing’s sword. Shoving the unbalanced mech back, Drift hopped out of grabbing range, twisting but not quite managing to avoid the arcing swing of Wing’s sword as it grazed his face. The noise the flier made was _hilarious_ , though, and Drift grinned fiercely as Wing wheezed purple smoke and thumped down onto his aft. Drift’s cheek stung fiercely, but the energon oozing from the wire-thin slice was already clotting. _On balance? Worth it._

“You’re dead,” he told the other mech, backing well out of grabbing range before stalking over to the wide-opticed newbies huddling behind the barrier.

“Last lesson,” he told them, brief grin disappearing; “frag honour. Keep your head, end it fast, get out alive. Fancy rules’re for paid fights when they want you to make up a story - _real_ ones end with the other mech down or dead, or it’ll be _you_ on your aft huffing paint, if you’re lucky. Grab the advantage, knock ‘em down, _keep_ ‘em down. Permanently.”

They were all nodding hard by the time he’d finished, one or two of them looking at him with shiny-opticed expressions that Drift didn’t want to poke too hard at. He turned away, heading for the door, and was interrupted _again_ by Wing’s now rather hoarse voice.

“Well, I suppose - that just shows - we all have something to learn.” The flier was wobbling up onto his pedes again, and Drift paused only briefly at the words before he kept walking. He’d hear it if the mech came at him, antigravs or no, and he was _done_ for the cycle. _Slag this free time thing anyway._

“Wait, please!”

Ugh. “ _Now_ what,” he started to say, then the hum of antigravs had him turning and gripping his pistol tight, blank shells or no, pedes braced and ready for the flier’s payback.

“I know who you are now,” the flier blurted, and Drift tensed on automatic. “You’re one of the fighters from Kaon - you came here with Megatron. And you beat me in combat. I know what that means with gladiators.” Wing’s optics lidded a darker gold than before, lingering on the narrow clotting gash striping Drift’s cheek; Drift’s tank started to roil uneasily. _Iaconians don’t go from pretentious gasholes to leakers in public, do they?_ “And I should really thank you for the lesson. Not everyone has the same protocols going into battle, and I should have remembered that.” 

The purple paint smeared all over Wing’s face and optics made him look ridiculous, especially up close, and Drift opened his mouth with a sneer already forming to tell him so. Then Wing leaned in and _kissed_ him, one arm clamping like an iron bar across the small of Drift’s back and a hand curling against his damaged cheek, thumb rubbing painfully against the rough, hardening energon there, and for one processor-numbing click Drift was forced off balance and his gun was pinned against his side and _Wing’s glossa was in his mouth-_

After a scant click’s frozen revulsion Drift bit down _hard_ , jagged fangs tearing into the flier’s glossa, and Wing let out a muffled squeal that rang through the training floor like shattering glass. Startled, his grip only got tighter, fingertips digging into Drift’s face; Drift kicked out, his free hand scrabbled for a hold, scratching at gaps in the flier’s plating for wires to tear and hurt and make the other mech _let him go._

_Slagging **thanks!**_

The frantic hammering of his fuel pump made his audials fuzz, blurring the rising shouts of guardsmechs starting to notice a scuffle. Wing _wouldn’t let go,_ stumbling and crushing Drift against his canopy - Drift dug his fingers under a flare of white plating and tore into something that made Wing bleat into the mess of energon between their mouths, _finally_ dropping Drift to the mats. He rolled before Wing could fall on top of him, clawing his way up onto his pedes and forcing through an override to stop his tanks from voiding. _Waste of energon._

He spat the thin mess of fuel and lubricant fouling his mouth back at Wing - nothing from that slagger’s frame was getting into Drift’s lines, not even if he was starving, and Drift _didn’t care_ if the gashole had no clue what an insult that was in the Dead End. Ironhide was shoving his way across the practise room, bellowing something with that suspicious snarl on his face, but Drift couldn’t hear what he said. He didn’t _want_ to, and Wing looking up at him all wounded optics and bleeding mouth just made him want to throw a punch.

“Drift,” the other mech gurgled, and frag if he didn’t think the chrome-aft sounded _shocked._ “Drift, what-?”

Slagging - _Iacon!_

“You,” Drift growled, engine revving in lurches and stabbing the muzzle of his pistol at the fragger. “Keep your sludgin’ thanks. Stay the _frag_ down.”

He turned, and if the flier called out to him again Drift didn’t hear it. He made it out of the door before his legs started shaking, and into a closet with a lock he could override before his tank seals finally gave. _Not again. Not ever again. Hit them hard enough,_ everyone _stays down._

*

The cycles after that were...difficult.

Drift was no stranger to being chased, but at least when a leaker was getting run through the Dead End by chop-shop thugs he knew _why_. After the mess in the training centre, Drift hadn’t expected to see the grabby flier again, and after a talk-come-debriefing with an aggravated Megatron he’d thought that would be the end of it. He had too much to do co-ordinating with Ultra Magnus and the Enforcers to make sure Orion’s confirmation ceremony thing didn’t get overrun with wild fanbots or another round of stabby assassins; he didn’t have time for mechs thinking with their ports and plugs.

Apparently Wing hadn’t got the ping.

*

Drift wasn’t entirely comfortable getting his fuel from the guards’ mess - whether the faintly hostile reception every time he walked in was because of the weird rank he’d had dropped on him from being Megatron’s second, or simple Iaconian mind-fraggery, Drift didn’t care. He wasn’t about to share his life story to try and get anyone to like him, and so long as they didn’t start anything, he’d keep his distance in return. Crossing over to the dispenser nearest to the door, the shortest route through ambivalent bodies, Drift’s spark nearly burst from its chamber when Wing appeared out of nowhere in front of him.

“Drift!” The flier beamed at him, something strange and anticipatory in his face that Drift couldn’t parse. “I’m so glad I caught up with you.”

Gripping his pistols tightly enough that his joints creaked, Drift’s command of his vocaliser failed in favour of a defensive engine-growl. He braced his pedes against the floor, sharp audials cataloguing the shift and murmur of other bodies packed in too close around them for comfort. “Frag off,” he growled, and only noted the briefly flummoxed look on Wing’s face as an incidental as he watched for signs he was about to be attacked. If the flier hadn’t had enough in the training room, Drift was just going to have to put him down even harder to make his point.

Gold optics flickered, darting over Drift’s face and his fiercely defensive field; whatever Wing saw there, it didn’t put him off. “I just wanted to apologise,” he said, and Drift almost put his audials through a reset. “I offended your honour, the first time we met. I wasn’t exactly subtle, or well-mannered, and I hope you can forgive me.” He dropped into a showy bow, and Drift gawked like a slagging tourist before he caught himself. Wing peeked up at him, optics bright and hopeful, and Drift had no idea what he could possibly get from all this other than making Drift look a fool in public. “I hoped we could start over and I could try to make a better impression this time.”

“Whatever,” he snapped, instinct sliding his pedes backwards away from danger even as training had him cataloguing the ways he could knock the flier down. There was a murmur going through the mess, and Drift heard the faint, high _bip_ of credits being transferred from one chit to another; he gave Wing one last suspicious glance and turned, marching for the door. He’d get his fuel from another fragging dispenser, or he’d come back later. He had enough stored away in his usual hiding spots that it wouldn’t hurt him to skip one of the official fuel breaks.

As he left Drift missed Wing straightening up, and the hopeful expression that lit the jet’s face and field.

*

After that, Drift couldn’t go back to his quarters without tripping over some pointless ornament or a terrifyingly fancy box of goodies. If there was nothing waiting for him when he got back after his shift, there was bound to be something outside just _waiting_ for him to step in it when he came back online ready for the _next_ shift. He’d already put his pede through a box that made a noise like someone dying as it broke, and it had taken an effort of will and pure flailing rage at the waste of it to force himself out of the washracks after throwing the - the whatever it had been in the recycling, instead of scrubbing his pedes until the paint wore away entirely. He’d been jittery all cycle after that, twitching to pull his guns on shadows, and he hadn’t missed Megatron’s frown whenever the Lord Protector had glanced Drift’s way. It had pulled all the worst of the cramps and withdrawal back up to the top of his processor, and it was obvious that Megatron noticed the tremors in his hands even if no-one else understood. He’d been dragged into Megatron’s berthroom that night and sandwiched in between him and Orion, and he couldn’t hide how it had helped, having someone (solid, warm, reliable) to watch his back through a fitful recharge.

Part of him knew that Megatron and Orion believed that he wasn’t filching all the stuff that kept appearing: the horrible glittery box that he’d stepped on and its wheeze-groaning contents; the goodie box that had the decals of a terrifying boutique from the most snobbish Tower enclave in the whole bunch - Drift had been in there all of _once_ with Orion and never wanted to so much as look at the place again; another box that looked suspiciously like a smaller version of the ones Orion had been ‘gifted’ by the Towermechs... Every time he found something outside his door or sitting on top of the weapons locker he used, he shoved whatever-it-was into a _security_ locker and logged it, jabbing at the idiot-proof Simplified picture glyphs with grim precision and privately thanking Megatron for showing him how. Whichever Iaconian glitch - or glitches, come to that, there was a lot of staring and sniggering behind hands going on when he walked the halls - was trying to trip him up, he wouldn’t fall for it.

Worse yet, Drift couldn’t get away from that slagging _jet._ When he was on Megatron-guarding duty, Wing popped up underpede like a greasy smear with some message from a Senator or an errand he just had to run nearby and then tried to _keep talking_ every time, at least before Megatron noticed and set him on fire with a glare too. And still Drift couldn’t walk through the halls without getting clocked by some random guardsmech or fluttery courtier doubletaking at him and whispering to whoever they were with, giggling and peering at him. He wasn’t going to dodge the main halls when he was working, slaggit, he was _supposed_ to be there and he had a job to do. 

When Drift was off-duty, though...then he spent extra time in the shower to make sure he hadn’t spontaneously broken out in buymech sigils or started to rust where it would show. The only other good thing about his too-large, hollow quarters was the private washrack, and the sheer amount of scalding hot cleanser and pressure it put out.

When Drift was off-duty, normally, he spent his time in the ‘racks or recharging in a pile of soft things he’d pulled together. (With _his own wages,_ frag him broken. It had taken some doing to explain that he was getting _credits_ for doing what he’d always done for fuel or out of loyalty, and he wasn’t sure he trusted the idea yet, but Orion had done the sad-optics thing and promised it would keep coming on the regular.) Or he explored the compound, finding what vents would fit a small determined grounder and where the weak points were; which shortcuts could be used in an emergency, where a larger mech could get stuck or a flier could slip through; how to get to where he needed to be in the shortest possible time. Drift had never forgotten the assassins that had dogged Megatron’s steps in Kaon, or the ones that had aimed right for Orion on the route to Iacon. (Apparently this was still working and he was supposed to do something else when he was off-duty. This just struck him as kind of weird. What else would he be doing?)

Sometimes he hung around as Megatron finished his own steady-work and followed him back to the quarters he’d claimed as Lord Protector, keeping him company and listening to the growing collection of poetry Megatron was putting together now he had access to the Iacon databanks. At least Megatron didn’t look at him funny, and he was used to people assuming they were fragging. Now, with Wing popping out of hatchways to pester him in the corridors and interrupting his watch shifts trying to talk to him and giving him _looks_ across the halls that he couldn’t interpret, Drift was finding it harder to recharge anywhere at all, getting more and more short-tempered and - all right, getting more highly-strung along with it. 

Still. Drift recharged better slumped at the end of Megatron’s berth than he did anywhere else, for one reason or another. He wasn’t good at recharging on a standard berth on his own and he knew it. Despite things seeming to have settled into a new Iaconian normal, Drift still wasn’t all that sure about changing the habit right away, and had pulled the tarps, foam matting and the sheets in his quarters into a nest under his berth instead of recharging on top of it. He’d locked his door against the housekeeping mechs on principle, and the less said of the first time someone had tried sneaking into his space the better.

He’d spent too many cycles tucked in warm and safe amongst recharging heavy-frames to recharge well alone anymore, and Megatron was the only one he’d trust to be alone with in a berth - for all the mech was only in it alone occasionally these days himself. Drift would consider sharing with Orion, but only if Megatron was there as well, and he knew that hurt Orion a little still but it hurt _Drift_ less to have Megatron there too. Under his berth was a distant second-best, bringing back memories of sharing hidey-holes with Gasket, but it was at least a reliable constant. More rarely he bunked with the twins, but only on really bad nights when Megatron was with Orion or Soundwave and busy crossing cables. They _understood,_ and Sunstreaker at least didn’t kick too much.

*

The most recent major annoyance in his life popped up as Drift walked down the main hall leading to Megatron’s official office - not to be confused with his unofficial office, that being Megatron’s favoured corner booth in the archives and where Drift knew to check if Megatron was ever late to anything. Wing appeared seemingly out of nowhere, a brightly-wrapped parcel in his hands, and Drift didn’t think anything of it outside of bracing himself and readying a good scowl to make sure the mech didn’t try to talk at him again-

“Oh, Drift!” Wing chirped, and _ugh._ The jet managed to work his way through the rush of criss-crossing traffic in the hall and caught up to him, beaming and hopeful and searching for something in Drift’s face or field that made Drift’s plating lock tighter. “I finally caught up with you. I’ve been looking all this cycle!”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Drift growled in high bad humour, his sensors flaring on high alert. What was _wrong_ with the mech? Didn’t he know how to leave people alone?

“Drift-”

Catching a sudden motion out of the corner of his optic, Drift jerked away as Wing tried to catch hold of his hand - or for the jet to grab the pistol from Drift’s hip and shoot, he had no way of knowing. Drift yanked himself out of Wing’s reach and turned, ready for a fight, and a startled Wing fumbled the oddly-shaped box he held; it hit the floor and broke open, a froth of goodies and icing splattering across the floor and up the wall, everyone else in the hallway stopping to stare at them. There was a brief click’s hush, then their tittering whispers began catching at Drift’s audials too quickly for him to parse. 

Drift’s tanks cramped into knots at the sheer _waste._ Now he recognised the box - another overpriced treat-box from the Towers goodie shops, pricey enough to have fed him and Gasket for _cycles_ in the Dead End if they’d managed to lift that many credits. He’d have had to share himself out to more marks than he could _count_ to afford that box, and the thought alone made his tanks want to purge - partly from disgust at Wing’s dropping the stupid thing, and partly at himself. 

His hands shook until he squeezed them into fists, and he snarled something he later couldn’t remember word-for-word about being a clumsy slagging idiot with a death wish before storming away, leaving Wing and the mess behind. If he’d stayed, he might’ve cracked and tried scraping the mess back into the box to save it, or actually shoot the chromeaft, and he would _not_ give that slaghead or the sharp-glossa’d gossip mill any more ammunition. Whatever Wing’s game was, Drift wasn’t about to screw up his duties because of it.

*

Megatron’s face briefly froze into a terrifying impassivity, then his optics narrowed and his shoulders bunched in an attitude carefully calculated to make the bravest gladiator in the arena quail. “I don’t follow, Senator. Perhaps you should spell out, _very_ clearly, just what you mean by that remark.”

Senator Dai Atlas - broad, stocky and decorated enough to think he had a chance against Megatron in a fight - gave him a look of barely disguised impatience, one that only the most stubborn Senate holdouts still used around the Kaonites. “What I mean, Lord Protector, is that I have had quite enough of your Second’s attitude. I have made enough of an investment in my personal guards that I do not wish to see them any more distracted by such games than need be, and all this mooning about has reached the point of absurdity.”

The glance Megatron sent Drift’s way was an eloquent one; Drift didn’t look away from the Senator, or move from his deliberately-offensive slouch against the wall, but he flexed the pauldrons of his armour in a dismissive _you’ve-got-me,-boss._ Unfortunately, with an audience, Megatron couldn’t just leave it at that and Drift knew it, however much he didn’t like it.

“I can safely say I’ve noticed no such mooning,” Megatron said dryly, “and my Second does not play games, as a rule. Drift?”

Drift shrugged again, staring the Senator right in the optics - they hated it, and hated Orion for barring the no-optic-contact sludge, and Drift took smug delight in watching the bigger mech radiate useless disapproval at him. “Got no clue what he’s talking about,” he drawled, and smirked just a little as the Senator screwed up his face at the thick Kaon-via-Dead-End accent. Sometimes Drift had to admit that he liked the effect of how he spoke when he stopped trying to talk nice like the miners, especially on slagheads like this one. _Not sure what Uraya thought they taught you,_ he sneered in the privacy of his own processor. _Sure wasn’t control._

“He knows exactly what I mean,” Dai Atlas snapped, big hands curling into fists as big as Drift’s head. Drift only twitched a shoulder again as Megatron’s optical ridges rose, thoroughly enjoying having a high-ranked mech visibly furious and still unable to touch him. “My knight has been showering gifts and attention on your Second, and all I hear is reports of disdainful and frankly dishonourable behaviour in return.”

...that took away any good feelings crash-fast, and Drift’s systems flipped over from pleasure to racing alarm. “What, that fragging jet?” he heard himself blurt, his voice high and brittle, and didn’t miss the look it earned him from the Senator despite his optics darting to Megatron for backup. “That was _him_ leaving scrap outside my door?” _The slag is his game?_

“Knight Wing,” Dai Atlas grated, “in his wisdom, has decided that he wishes to win your affections. I approve only so far as him getting this - this unhealthy obsession out of his system, and preventing any more unseemly public displays.”

Drift’s systems felt ready to redline. _That mess in the hall..._ Before they came to Iacon he would have been able to banter or scrap with someone before he jittered out of his plating, usually with Megatron or the twins and somewhere safe to curl up when he crashed, and before that there had always been Syk to help him go off somewhere else in his processor, but he _wasn’t_ going to boost, he _wasn’t_ going to throw Megatron’s affection and attention back in his face, he _wasn’t._ “The _frag,_ ” he burst out instead, and Dai Atlas sneered down at him like he’d stepped in something nasty.

“I can’t say I see the appeal,” he said snidely, “but yes, that is the idea. I assume _you_ are familiar with it.”

The coolant in Drift’s lines _burned,_ the snarl of his engine drowning out the spluttering noise he made as words failed him yet again, but even that was buried by the ominous thunder of Megatron’s heavy-duty engine rumbling a threat.

“Are you implying that my Second should be grateful for the toys and sweets your knight has left lying around, unsigned and apparently undeclared, simply so that one of your bodyguards - a grown mech - doesn’t have to actually use his words and potentially hear a refusal?” Megatron tilted his helm, very slightly. “Perhaps he is afraid of having his _feelings_ hurt.”

Put like that, in a deadly, silky-smooth voice that promised absolute murder if Dai Atlas agreed that why yes, this was perfectly appropriate in Iacon for all it was clear as a clogged tube to _sensible_ mechs, the Senator had little choice but to back up a step and remember that he had to behave for the Lord Protector, otherwise his shiny trinkets and fancy job would go away. Drift’s fists squeaked again as they tightened, but the bigger mech didn’t look his way again, sticking his nose in the air instead.

“My hope was that bringing this to your attention would bring some kind of resolution to the current impasse,” he said haughtily, and Megatron’s field prickled dangerously at the less than respectful tone. “My Second’s hope was to move forward after the proper gifts and courtesies, which seem to have been lost on this mech.”

Drift couldn’t see Megatron’s expression, not through the haze of heat-warnings clustering thickly on his HUD and the shadows clutching at his processor, but anyone with sense wouldn’t have kept pushing. 

“If your mech had communicated his wants clearly, Drift would have been able to accept or turn him down with neither you nor I getting involved in their business,” Megatron growled. “As it is, both you and your mech are wasting my time. Drift? Do you need any time to consider knight Wing’s allegedly romantic proposal?”

The Senator bristled, either at the dismissal or the ding to his favourite shiny, but Drift barely noticed. “Frack no!” he rasped, optics paling, his vocaliser thick with static and the sour taste of old charge. “Why the smelt _would_ I? Mech’s a fraggin’ glitch!” _That’s what all this was about?! Trying to buy me without having to say it?_ Even the thought of it made his tanks roil, rage and the sickening upsurge of remembered helplessness making it hard to keep his fuel down. _Not again! Fragging - **Iacon** , too fragging good to ask out loud for a buymech! He think he’s being a hot-wings tease or something?_

“I hardly think your Second’s language appropriate,” Dai Atlas ground out, optics hot and more angry than he allowed his field to show - seemed like some of Drift’s utter revulsion had slipped out. _Pity._ “I may not approve of Knight Wing’s choices, but after due consideration the least your Second could offer would be taking part in a communal interface alongside my knight. Perhaps that would go some way towards mending ties that it would not do to break.”

For a moment Drift really thought the seals on his tanks would void and all the old sludge would come oozing out, cold and thick and viscous in his mouth in his tanks in his valve in his ports- 

Sudden thunder sent his audials into protective shutdown, and Megatron strode the few steps forward to loom over the Senator like a rockslide ready to fall.

“Let me make this clear,” he hissed, the sound a hydraulic lift readying to drop, his optics slitted and cold. “ _Drift_ decides if, when and with whom he chooses to interface, no-one else. I will not and will never order another to do anything that I would not do myself, and if your knight finds it hard to understand that Drift has _chosen_ not to interface _with him,_ then he may bring it up with me _himself_. And if his hurt feelings affect your policies, _Senator_ \- perhaps you should consider putting a little more distance between yourself and your employees. It wouldn’t do for mechs to think you jealous of your Knight’s affections, now would it.”

“Are _you_ implying favouritism, _Lord Protector?_ ” Dai Atlas growled, shifting his weight and pushing up into Megatron’s field range, a clear challenge even if the bigger mech hadn’t once been a gladiator. Megatron only sneered in reply.

“Are you implying that you would place your favourite’s urges over sound policy, Senator? If doing your duty for duty’s sake is no longer enough, I’m sure we could find a replacement for your _formal_ position. Any others are your own business to manage.” He twitched his helm towards the exit, optics not leaving the Senator’s furious expression. “There is the door. Kindly let me know your decision by the next on-cycle, and don’t let me hear any of this foolishness come up again.”

*

“You’re going to leave dents in that.”

Drift didn’t move, and Megatron only huffed a hint of exasperation through his vents before heading for the berth. “Hopefully that little show will put an end to any annoyance from your admirer, or the Senator.”

“Stupid glitch,” Drift muttered, pulling his knees in tighter against his chest. His heels were digging into the padding of Megatron’s obscenely large berth, true, but this wasn’t like the torn, dirty metal scraps they’d had to recharge on in the Dead End - this was a tough, flexible foam padding that Drift wasn’t entirely sure he could tear if he tried to. It had taken him long enough to be comfortable sitting on it, let alone pulling his pedes up; he’d been convinced he’d leave marks on the stuff and ruin it. Even after more stints in the washracks than he ever could have imagined before, even after _Uraya,_ he still couldn’t shift the conviction there was still Dead End grime caught under his Kaon armour. “Both of them. Glitches.”

Megatron snorted, picking out a datapad from the desk as he passed. “I looked into the good Senator’s record after he left us. He’s sponsoring Wing all right - he was the one to commission the mech from Vector Sigma in the first place.”

Drift blinked, lifting his helm from his tight curl to give Megatron a dubious wrinkle-nosed look. “‘S that normal, going poking around in your Sigma bit’s ‘facing life?” He certainly wouldn’t have appreciated it, had he known his own commissioners, but the nearest thing he’d ever had was Gasket. Then again, given that Gasket was the one to vet who bought time with Drift when they needed the credits...eh, maybe he couldn’t talk after all. 

“I have no idea,” Megatron was saying, his own voice as dry as dust. “Perhaps we should ask Orion.”

The noise Drift made in response to that didn’t bear repeating, but it made Megatron laugh and cross the rest of the room - far too big in Drift’s opinion, but if Megatron didn’t have to hunch and pack himself down small into a berth that would have him cramping by the next morning, then he wasn’t going to complain out loud - and settle onto the berth next to him. Drift leaned in, craning over Megatron’s arm to try and decipher the characters; Megatron tilted the screen obligingly. “I thought perhaps some Oceanglide, at least to start with.”

“Thought you were in the archives for Senator Dirty Secrets,” Drift drawled in mock disapproval, and Megatron grinned conspiratorially at him from under the heavy ridge of his helm.

“And waste the opportunity to ransack their poetry database? Never.”

Drift snickered, uncurling from his huddle to get comfortable leaning against Megatron’s arm, and settled in to listen to him read.


	5. Wing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift hates parties. Hates the food, hates the people, hates all the assassination attempts. Haaate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uggh, I'm sorry this one took a while. It's the busy season at work right now and I've managed to catch a bug at the same time. Not fun, let me tell you.
> 
> Anyway, herein Drift copes - grumpily - with both the social and physically-damaging sides of being a Lord Protector's 2iC. He also keeps on running into Wing, but both these aggravations work themselves out in the end...warnings for damage and medical equipment.

This, Drift reflected, was just one more reason to hate the stupid chrome-plated Towers mechs - their stupid chrome-plated parties. It wasn’t enough that there had been one assassination attempt after another going after Orion, now they were trying to kill him off with _parties._

Drift’s experience, thus far, of the Iaconian take on the things had mainly consisted of fuels that made his tanks ache, conversations that made his processor ache and enough posturing and snide little comments to make him want to punch someone. Not to mention _people trying to kill them._

_Again!_

At least he got to sneak around the edges and brush the annoying suck-ups off by telling them he was on duty - Megatron kept getting stuck having to _talk_ to people. He’d had more gasholes trying to get under his armour than he ever thought was even possible, and this was supposed to be the fun after-party bit of Optimus Prime’s official Confirmation; by now even Orion’s determined good cheer was wearing thin.

Orion wasn’t the only one grinning and bearing it, either. Wing was at the party too, and Megatron’s biting at his boss didn’t seem to have filtered down to the flier _at all_. Either Dai Atlas wasn’t as scary as he claimed or the jet was just that stubborn, since Wing’s too-bright optics kept searching Drift out. Another sticky-fingered gaze settled on him from across the room and Drift swore under his breath. How was he supposed to work like this? He couldn’t dismiss the flier as not-a-threat and concentrate, not once the notion of stealth-buying ‘facing had thoroughly crept under his plating and the sick feeling wouldn’t leave him alone; his one consolation was that Dai Atlas kept glaring whenever he caught sight of Drift and wouldn’t go anywhere near him, and Wing seemed to be on a much shorter leash at this stupid ‘event’. 

Maybe someone was planning something stabby for this party too and he could find an excuse to punch the mech. Might make him feel better.

_Least I used to **know** when someone’d bought me._

“Drift!” someone cried, and he groaned inwardly. _Why do they all want to talk to me, slaggitall!_ “Ah, how lovely. I was just looking for a handsome distraction and, well, here you are.”

“Working,” Drift droned, deliberately looking past the painted fancy sauntering up beside him instead of at them.

“My dear mech, you work entirely too hard. We never see you at any of the other guardsmechs’ little parties.”

Drift’s hand curled into a fist where the other couldn’t see, tilting his head slowly and as menacingly as he knew how. Vicious satisfaction warmed his tanks at the little flinch-and-falter under the courtier’s oilslick patter. _Think I’m for sale, huh?_ “Not a guardsmech,” he said, soft and threatening, and made a mental note to thank Sunstreaker later for the perfect tone to copy.

“Oh, of course, I certainly wouldn’t mean to imply-”

“Get lost,” he said flatly, and smirked just a little when the mech’s plating puffed up in shock and outrage. “Busy here.”

“Well, I never-!”

“Is this person bothering you, Drift?” came an all-too-familiar voice, and Drift’s shoulders dropped as he groaned. _Slaggit, did Dai Aftless get distracted or something? Do your job, gashole!_

“Slagging right,” he said, turning slightly to keep Wing and the courtier both in view. Wing seemed to brighten, about to say something else over the courtier’s offended intake before Drift beat him to it. “Can both annoy each other now. I’m busy.”

He started moving, turning his back on the both of them, slipping between the over-decorated frames of other partygoers and leaving them behind. _Both so desperate for a frag, can take care of themselves._ Drift only paused when he reached another good vantage point, lingering at the turn in the stairs with the curve of a balcony up and away on his left. It reminded him of the way the roads in Kaon slid and twisted up and down the pits, as well as giving him a good view of just about the whole room. Someone had to keep an optic on Megatron and Orion, after all.

Drift let his gaze scan impartially over the party, lingering on nothing and getting a sense of the room instead of letting himself settle on one person and get distracted. He might not know fancy manners, but he’d learned how to read the mood of a gathering from Kaon and Orion’s very early attempts at speeches - he watched the whorls and eddies of conversation, mapped who was talking to who, poked his small-but-growing team of Megatron-watchers to do the same and filed it all away in his head for Megatron to interpret later.

He was a little less impartial when Dai Atlas hauled Wing back to the Senator’s chosen huddle and then out of the party entirely in one great big snit, but at this point Drift reckoned he was owed at least one snicker at the jet’s expense. And, true to form, not long after that the screaming started and things went all to the pit.

*

_Stupid. Slaggin’. Parties._

Drift leaned against the wall, bracing himself with a hip that throbbed only a little less than his other side, pistols in his hands and optics sharp as he looked over the shellshocked crowd. The would-be assassin had done some damage before they’d finally taken them down, and apparently actually having to see the messy parts of life had freaked out a few of the snobs. Boo hoo.

“I’m gonna patch the last of this, then we’re getting you back to the compound’s medbay,” Ratchet was telling Orion, his fierce no-nonsense growl doing more to reassure Drift about Orion’s repairs than anything else could. “Uh-uh! Don’t even think about moving, and as for you-”

Ratchet haranguing the ruling dyad and Megatron muttering in reply was the best thing he could have heard. Drift let the sound soothe some of his racing systems, holding off the jitters for a while longer - Orion would be safer in the compound. They just had to get him there, when Megatron was done patching things, and the twins were pacing and _enforcing_ a perimeter that kept all the suspect party guests and the hissing, fussing, clucking bureaucrats and their assistants at bay.

“This is outrageous,” one of them was insisting. “The Prime is attacked on your watch-”

“Yeah, no, still not getting any closer,” Sideswipe said cheerily, and Drift saw the tension in his frame ratchet up that bit higher. “If you’re not a guard or a medic you can back the frag up, understand? That goes for all of you.”

There was plenty of grousing and complaining, but there wasn’t the dangerous edge to it that meant someone was about to go for the dents. Didn’t seem likely there was a second assassin waiting to jump in, but none of them were ready to relax - far from it, Ironhide was standing practically on top of Ratchet and scowling at anyone who so much as looked too closely at Orion - and even the grousing chrome-afts were looking around all nervous and clinging to their own bodyguards. Gladius and the others were hardly inconspicuous, and they were moving through the crowd just _waiting_ for someone to try something. Frag he had a good team.

Eventually Ratchet sat up, casting over Orion and Megatron with a critical optic. “All right, you’re good to go. I’ll get you shined up all pretty when we get back, but you won’t fall over on the way.”

Ratchet was _amazing._ Even Megatron snickered like he hadn’t meant to.

They started picking up to leave, Ironhide visibly needing to lock his joints to help haul Orion up off the ground, but naturally as soon as Orion was back on his pedes he made some little bit of a speech to reassure people. Megatron just loomed behind him, glaring at anyone who glanced away from Orion. Ironhide stuck like glue to Orion’s left and Megatron stomped along on his right, his defiantly unfancy polish barely scuffed in comparison to Orion’s weld-scorched and charred paint. The twins ranged ahead, and Drift pushed himself up off the wall to watch their backs. 

_This ain’t gonna be fun._ Drift set his jaw and locked down his vocaliser, taking the first of many swaying steps trying to look like he was _just fine slaggit_ and nobody had better mess with him. Hopefully people would think the energon spilling down his thigh and smeared over his side was the other mech’s - and that his stagger was actually a swagger.

It worked for the hobble out of the venue and onto the street, Ratchet loading everyone into the thoroughly-vetted big transport Orion had been persuaded into taking home. Drift liked the transportmech; she was blunt and to the point and didn’t mind their security precautions, even when it meant taking the long route to places or being called out with no notice like she had been this time around. Drift took up a post near the back, letting the twins descend on Megatron and Orion like they’d been itching to since the attack. Ratchet was preoccupied making sure nobody got dinged again while Ironhide headed to the front of the transport to keep one optic on their path ahead and the other optic on Orion.

Drift just watched, leaning against the transport’s bulkhead near the ramp where his audials would be his best defence against any trouble, and as they headed back to the Prime’s Compound and the safe haven of the medbay he quietly soaked in Ratchet’s voice, the flash of his optics, the rock-solid certainty that _everything would be all right, now._

*

“What in the _world-_ ”

Drift was the first out of the transport, as always - less light on his pedes than usual, maybe, but still alert for anyone wanting to make a try for the Prime or Lord Protector. Unfortunately that meant he was also the first one anybody passing could see as the Prime’s group moved towards exiting the transport, and that he was kind of covered in mostly-drying energon himself was...not exactly reassuring. Equally unfortunate was the fact that Wing had apparently just come back from a message run for his Senator after being hustled out of the stupid party, and darted to Drift’s side before the startled mech could do more than whip his pistols up to aim at the threat. ...all right, maybe his reaction time was busted if Wing could get the drop on him.

“Drift! What in Primus’ name _happened_ to you - are you all right?” Wing swept right up to the base of the transportmech’s ramp, completely ignoring the pistols aimed at his face, and only Drift’s bewilderment that anyone could be so stupid kept him from shooting first and arguing about it later. Wing reached for him; his longer arms had Drift backing sharply into the transport before Wing could make contact with his plating, or with the sticky-wet energon starting to trickle again at the abrupt movement.

“Frack _off,_ ” Drift hissed, keeping his pistols in his hands slaggitall and trying to both keep Wing at bay and his attention on the loading bay. “I got a job to do and you’re _in the way._ ”

That finally got the jet to back up, shiny-white face looking hurt all over again just in time for _oh frag me NO_ Ratchet to poke his head out of the transport’s hatch looking all suspicious, with Sunstreaker glaring out right behind him.

“Everything okay out here?” Ratchet asked sharply, giving Wing what was very clearly a who-is-this Look that made Drift groan internally.

“Fine,” he said, trying to cut Wing out, but too late.

“You’re injured,” the jet protested loudly, plating fluffing up in agitation. “You shouldn’t be on duty like this! You, medic, I’m taking him to the medbay-”

“Like frag!” Drift burst out, horror and indignation mingling in his voice at Wing’s not even knowing who Ratchet was - right along with the stinging shame of looking like an idiot in front of Ratchet thanks to this aft’s meddling. “Back the _frag_ off, like slag do I need your help!”

“But you _do!_ ” Wing burst out, hands fluttering like anxious fliers. “You’re hurt and you need repairs - and I _could_ help you, I know you Kaonites don’t use the Iaconian ways with things like cutlery and training and addressing the Senators properly, I could show you how and you’d be able to fit in, I could make it so much easier for you to really be the person I know you are underneath if-”

“What,” Drift snapped, the heaping pile of words all but smothering him if it hadn’t been for the achingly sharp knowledge that Ratchet was _listening_ to all this slag, sizzling indignation cutting him an open vent through the crush of Wing’s voice. “What, if I’d just figured out _you_ were the gashole leaving slag all outside my quarters?” Wing’s face fell and Drift cycled his vents, pulling strength and venom from the pain in his side and the humiliation. “Maybe if I’d just let you frag me all you wanted? _You can’t buy me,_ no matter how much fancy slag you stack up.”

“I - I wasn’t-!” Wing’s field was burning now, casting little glances between Drift and Ratchet as though expecting the medic to be on his side and back him up. “It’s not _like_ that, I read more of the datapads, I thought you’d _like_ the goodies, I know I made a mistake in the training room but- Drift, please, I just want you to give me a chance!”

“To what, jam your spike in me?” Drift sneered, disgust dripping from his glossa and making Wing wince. “Or maybe you wanna get spiked instead. Lemme guess, you fingered your ports thinkin’ bout what’s under my armour. Well you’re not finding out.” Drift stumped forwards, optics blazing, and took vicious satisfaction in how Wing shrank back away from him. “You,” he said, low and clear and staring Wing in the optics, “are never getting under my plating. You understand?”

Wing let out a low, miserable sound, then fled the loading bay at a run. The flare of victory and adrenaline rushing through his lines carried Drift back up the transport ramp, almost managing a swagger in his step, which promptly chilled to a nagging sharp pain at the worrying realisation that Ratchet’s narrowed optics were fixed on him. Ordinarily he’d be guiltily pleased by that, but after the scene he’d just been through...

“When,” Ratchet asked him, scarily quiet, “were you planning on telling me you were hurt?”

“...uh.” Drift blinked up at him, not sure if he needed to reboot his audials or not. Dimly he realised Megatron, Orion, Ironhide and Sideswipe had made their way to the door of the transport in turn and were staring at him in turn from behind Ratchet’s broad shoulders - Sideswipe with a look of frank approval, Megatron just a little smug and Orion worried. Drift generally made a point of not looking to see what Ironhide thought of him, since normally it wasn’t worth it - yup, ‘disapproval’ again - but Sunstreaker just nodded and gave him a quick, evil smirk that made Drift want to stand a little straighter, though he knew better. Ratchet was still watching. “‘S not so bad?”

Slaggit, that wasn’t supposed to come out as a question, but Ratchet was _looking_ at him and doing the scowl he usually reserved for Megatron. “I’ll be the judge of that,” Ratchet said flatly. “Come on. Medbay, the lot of you. Ironhide, you take Optimist Prime, I’ll deal with this one.”

Before Drift had time to do more than stare at _deal with?_ , Ratchet had strode over to him like an avenging fury of Primus and scooped Drift clean off his pedes. Drift let out a noise he would hopefully _never ever make again_ and curled up, the sudden tilt making his head spin and something dig painfully enough into his innards that he couldn’t hide the pain. Ratchet cradled him against his wide windshield and Drift leaned into him instinctively, seeking out the scent of _hospital_ and _safe now_ that he’d never forgotten in all the stink of the Dead End and everything that had come after - the smell of _everything’s going to be all right now. I got you._

Ratchet was warm, and that really was kind of a lot of energon all over his plating, and Drift was tired. He rested his weirdly heavy helm against Ratchet’s shoulder, and barely noticed the fast walk to the medbay as he tried to keep a lid on the pain signals so he could concentrate on _Ratchet’s carrying me._

He hurt, but it was almost the best few clicks of his life. All he needed now was for Ratchet to say he was special, and he could bleed out all over the floor and not mind too much.

 _Ratchet would, though._ The thought simultaneously warmed him and made his spark hurt.

The medbay berth was cold and the lights were too bright - they made Drift’s optics sting and his helm start to ache, throbbing in time with his fuel pump, and he clung instinctively to Ratchet’s plating the way he had in the clinic when Ratchet went to put him down. A soft hum rumbled through Ratchet’s chest, right under Drift’s cheek, and he pressed his helm closer against Ratchet’s windscreen with the hazy idea of hearing it better that way. 

Ratchet’s arm slid out from under the crook of Drift’s legs and he made a soft noise of protest, one that died away into nothing when Ratchet shifted around to cradle Drift’s helm with the hand he’d freed up. That - that helped, actually, the spread of Ratchet’s fingers blocking out some of the medbay lights’ glare and soothing the thumping in his helm. He relaxed a little, leaning against Ratchet’s strength and soaking in the fierce comfort of Ratchet’s field. _Safe now. Ratchet won’t let anything bad happen._ Ratchet’s fingertips traced lightly over the crest of his helm and Drift crooned softly, barely aware he was doing it, and thought he heard a distant familiar, incredulous voice rise and then be hushed up again. It niggled, but everything seemed to be running slow and quiet inside the protection of Ratchet’s field, and he didn’t have it in him to worry anymore. The lights still hurt, so Drift shut down his optics to feel Ratchet’s field and his touch better. _’S nice..._

“Huh,” Ratchet said softly, then the gentle stroking went away and Drift mourned the loss. “Easy, kid, I’m gonna lay you down and take a look at- the _frag-?_ ”

“What’s wrong?” another voice rumbled - Megatron, always Megatron, doubly safe with them both here. Drift tried to summon up something reassuring, make sure Megatron knew that too, but the words slipped out of his grasp as soon as he reached for them. That happened every time...

“What’s _wrong_ is that I can’t get at any of his medical ports,” Ratchet said sharply, “seeing as how it looks like someone fitted him with armour that _locks the lot of them down._ I don’t suppose you know anything about all this?”

“It was standard in the Kaon pits,” Megatron said, sounding kind of defensive. It’d be funny if Drift’s fuel levels hadn’t started pinging insistently at him - they hadn’t been that low since Kaon. He’d got used to seeing that nice, round 50% full on his HUD, he didn’t want to be hungry and cold again...

“Drift - _Drift._ Kid, look at me.”

 _Ratchet..._ Drift forced his optics online, the world blurry-bright and painful as Ratchet leaned over him. 

“I’m gonna need to take your armour apart,” Ratchet told him bluntly, and normally Drift _liked_ Ratchet telling people straight out what was gonna happen but he _needed_ his armour! “Easy, easy - I need to see the damage so I can fix it, kid. I need to get to one of your medical ports so I can keep an optic on how you’re doing, and I can’t do that with your armour in the way. I won’t just leave you like that when I’m done, I promise. I’m a medic, remember? I fix things. I don’t leave jobs half-done.”

 _...right. Right. Ratchet won’t just leave me._ It seemed very easy to trust that, and Drift nodded despite the anxiety curling through his lines. It almost looked like Ratchet relaxed when he did, but that - that was just weird.

“Okay. Brave kid. I’m gonna put you in medical stasis and get you repaired, all right? Then we can sort out your armour.” Ratchet rested a hand on Drift’s gauntlet, and waited for Drift to nod again before reaching for his helm-

Then nothing.

*

After hooking a fuel line into Drift's systems Ratchet straightened, huffing through his vents. It had been a long, long cycle, and this was the last thing he needed on top of Orion’s remaining repairs. He turned, and almost tripped over the Lord Protector, looming behind him like that was supposed to intimidate him.

“That really isn’t helping,” he informed Megatron tiredly, and took some small private satisfaction in the look of bemused pique that prompted. _No, I’m not scared of you. Nyeh-nyeh._ “I got work to do, so unless there’s anything else on you that needs knocking straight...”

Megatron’s optic ridges drew down into a ferocious scowl, and Ratchet had to give him points on his delivery. Well done that mech.

“Given that said work is repairing my Second,” Megatron rumbled, crossing his arms and doing that menacing thing again, “I would appreciate some information.”

“Great - so would I. The _frag_ this is standard, it’s minibot armour that’s been worked on to fit his frame! Every single plug and port is covered over, which I’m now going to have to unlock one tiny little jack at a time, on top of fixing a slow bleed-out that would have offlined him in his recharge if he’d just _left it_ the way it looks like he was trying to.” Ratchet fixed Megatron with a gimlet glare, fiercely glad that the big mech actually flinched at his words. _Good._ “Now I’m looking at it, it’s covering up a couple of overflow vents, which also explains the mess after that little incident with you lot and over-rich goodies a while back.”

“It...was our best option when we came to Kaon,” Megatron said a little stiffly, arms still locked tight against his chestplate. “He was underfuelled and his plating was too thin to withstand a fall, let alone a blaster round, so our pit medic did what he could.”

“Hrmpf. As protective armour it’s good enough, but locking every single slagging port down...” Ratchet leaned in, one fingertip transforming out into a complicated little tool that had seen a lot of use that it wasn’t necessarily intended for. Resting his free hand gently on Drift’s knee, he set about picking the armour’s locking mechanisms - one tooth at a time if he had to. “Pretty sure I know the reasons why, but that doesn’t mean this is gonna be quick. Tell Orion to get his aft in here; that plating won’t hammer itself straight.”

*

Drift woke slowly, stretched out flat on his back with strong white lights glaring overhead. He felt...lighter, all his sensors registering something subtly _off_ and the tickle of moving atmosphere where it shouldn’t be. That was both frighteningly _wrong_ and comforting in a way he couldn’t parse at first, and only when his sluggish processor caught up with his other sensors did he realise that the sense of _safe_ and _comfort_ was coming from the smell of strong cleanser and decontaminants and the soft beeping of monitoring equipment. _Medbay._

He shifted a little, twitching his fingers one at a time, but before he’d reached his wrist joints the sound of pedes came from off to one side of his berth, and Drift’s optics flicked across to meet Ratchet’s enquiring gaze.

“Hey,” the medic said, quiet and tired, and something sparked warmth through Drift’s lines - Ratchet sounding so close to the way he had in the Dead End clinic. _Special._ “Go gently for a while there, you’ve had a busy few cycles.”

“Right,” Drift rasped; a dart of alarm raced through his systems at how he sounded, like he’d been wandering on a high for so long he’d almost forgotten how to talk and his vocaliser had dried out. “How many?”

“How many?” Ratchet’s helm tilted, then he seemed to understand before Drift had to try and summon enough words to explain. “Not that long. Enough for me to get that armour of yours off and patch up a nasty slice through your side - you’re lucky you didn’t bleed out on the way here.” 

Drift grimaced - he deserved that sharp tone for the worry he could see in Ratchet’s face. “Sorry. Glitch was faster’n I thought.” ...Ratchet’s expression went a little strange at that. _What did I say wrong?_

“Makes a change for someone to apologise for getting hurt,” the medic said mildly, but there was intent under the words. “Speaking of which - I can hear the Kaon in your accent, but that ain’t all it is. And I recognise some of the weldwork under your armour. We met before, kid?”

Ratchet’s optics were entirely focussed on him, steady and assessing, and Drift’s lines prickled from head to pede as his fuel pump beat faster. Ratchet’s intense scrutiny went to his head like a tankfull of good fuel, making his fingers tingle and his fans click onto a higher setting, like he was ready to run or being chased. “Maybe,” he croaked. Oh, he’d pull out every dirty gutter trick he knew to keep Ratchet’s attention all for himself, just for a click.

“It is you, isn’t it?” Ratchet asked, his optics brightening from their usual stormcloud, lightning-edged blue. “The youngling from the Dead End, in the clinic-”

“Yeah. Yeah, that was me.” _You saved my life. You told me I was special. ...you cared what happened to me._ “Sorry I didn’t come back and see you.”

“Frag, kid - _Drift._ I’m just glad you made it.” Ratchet’s expression was warming into something Drift hadn’t seen before, not directed at him, not like this - something like joy, like relief, like Ratchet hadn’t forgotten about him at all in all the time he’d been gone. Ratchet’s hand clamped onto the strutwork of his shoulder, squeezing gently and giving him a little shake, like he was so- so _glad_ he just had to pass it on somehow, like how the miners in Kaon would mock-punch Megatron’s shoulder or the twins would box and tussle with each other. “Frag me. I never thought it’d be like this the next time I saw you.”

Drift gave Ratchet a grin that bled into his field, one that caught him by surprise when he realised what he was doing, and one that he couldn’t regret when it made Ratchet’s field _sparkle._ “Me either,” he said a little shyly. “So - think I proved you right yet?”

The look Ratchet gave him made something almost extinguished begin to warm him from his spark outwards. “Only person you ever needed to prove anything to was yourself,” the medic said almost fondly. “I just gave you a nudge to show it, that’s all. So - you might have noticed the no plating thing. You won’t need your armour when I’m done with you, but I’m basically gonna have to rebuild your outer shell. Anything fancy you want in your design?”

Drift ducked his head a little, doing his best to at least look like he was thinking rather than fighting the urge to hug himself to keep all the happy inside his wiring and out of sight. “Can I get some more red bits?” he asked, and Ratchet burst out laughing.

*

It took a while, and Drift was a lot more clear-headed by the time Ratchet was done rewiring and replacing the damaged bits of him. Especially after he’d insisted that Drift soak in a bath of - something, something hot and fizzy that scoured through dirt so old it felt like bits of his substructure were burning away. Drift had just enough energy to squirm in old, clinging embarrassment at how the fizzy stuff turned Dead End grey in an instant when Ratchet lifted him into it, but Ratchet didn’t even blink - just kept half-emptying and refilling the bath until the fizzy stuff finally ran clear. Drift wobbled on his pedes when Ratchet lifted him out again, feeling lighter than he’d ever been in his life and strange with it; atmosphere touched cold-wet spots that had been coated in grime for so long, and covered by his armour on top of it, that they felt almost unbearably strange now they were bared to the air.

He’d never felt so clean, and he wouldn’t go back to Uraya after feeling like this. He’d take doing this with Ratchet every single time.

“Sit, sit,” Ratchet was saying, waving him towards a drying tube; Drift meekly did as he was told and sat on the slatted bench inside , watching as Ratchet started up the fans and shivering a little at the air movement. He’d never done this before either, but Ratchet was the expert.

//So,// Ratchet said over the burring roar of the fans. //Red bits, huh?//

 _Sludge me, I was out of it._ //Yeah,// he said anyway, twitching as the prickly heat of awkward was whisked off by the dryer. //Dunno what else to say.//

//Well, all the chassis parts and struts I replaced were wearing out or needed upgrading anyway, so you’ll find you’re more agile and maybe a bit stronger than you’re used to,// Ratchet said, and Drift blinked. //And if I ever find you’re only topping up your tanks to 50% on the regular we’ll be having words, understand? If someone’s been cutting your fuel allocation I’ll have their heads.//

A file transfer pinged at him; Drift opened it when he saw Ratchet’s ID on the thing, and stared at a mishmash of numbers and colours he couldn’t come close to deciphering. //You take your full allocation _and_ the additives I’ll be adding in to your fuel, and you’ll be right where you should be in no time,// the medic said, in a voice that Drift would not be arguing with. //Your original plating was barely a micron thick!//

//Yeah,// Drift said quietly, and saved the file without any visible fumbling, at least. Maybe Megatron could read it to him later... //Happens.//

Ratchet bristled, and Drift’s tanks did something weird at the sight of it. //Not here,// Ratchet said, pointing a stern finger at him. //Not in my medbay and not on my watch. Understand? You ever feel off, _at all,_ you come to me.//

A tingling warmth filled Drift’s lines, and he just about managed not to shift in his seat. //Sure thing,// he croaked, and sat stunned in the face of Ratchet’s fierce approval.

//Good. ...right. Let that finish up, then we can look at some designs. You want the same kind of outline or just fresh paint?//


	6. Kaon - The Treks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heading back to Kaon, we see a little bit of the Trek madness from Ratchet's point of view. One great big city-wide (and -deep) party that lasts for cycles on end? He is there with bells on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been looking forward to posting this chapter so much guys you don't even know. :D So! This chapter takes part of its inspiration from some gorgeous art by Kusu, here and here -  
> kusuarts DOT tumblr DOT com/post/127359181728/hhhnnnnngh and post/127352855723/kusuarts-saucy-deadlock-for-roskno-uvu-x. 
> 
> Also from trawling youtube trying to find the exactly right kind of drumming - try these two for an idea of what Ratchet's hearing. 
> 
> youtube DOT com/watch?v=-PKNuZovuSw and /watch?v=YNmXNc95ncU
> 
> No real warnings in this chapter - aside from the Kaonite debut of the Party Ambulance. ;D And many many thanks go to raisedbymoogles for helping me write the doc-bot's parts! <3

“If this is any variation on Screw With the Iaconian, you and I will be having _words_ , Megatron.”

Megatron’s engine hiccupped, and Ratchet was - pretty sure it was from amusement over affront. Most of the big Kaonite’s bodyguards and company were used to how much Ratchet Didn’t Do Titles by now, and only snickered at the innuendo; Megatron himself said nothing, so it was Sideswipe who answered. “Don’t worry, Ratch,” he chirped. “You’ll like this.”

Any information about the Kaon Treks that might have been useful was kept at arm’s length from him for the entirety of the drive to Kaon, much to Ratchet’s annoyance. He’d leaped at the chance to see the other city’s take on Trek observances, as well as getting away from the pomp and circumstance of Iacon’s formal parties, but as they crossed the state limits and began the circuitous descent into Kaon city proper Ratchet’s sensors began to register an anomaly.

“Hey,” he said slowly, not all that sure it wouldn’t lead to an outbreak of teasing. “What’s that vibration?”

Sure enough, Sideswipe cackled, and Ratchet tensed on his wheels. “Ohhh, that’s the fun part! Can’t you hear it?”

“Huh?” Surprised, Ratchet flicked his sensors over the rest of the party - Sideswipe was practically vibrating with eagerness himself, his twin watchful up ahead with their advance guard, and nobody else seemed inclined to laugh at the question. With that small reassurance taken care of, Ratchet boosted his audial gain cautiously and _listened._

_Boom._

_Boom-boom._

_Boom-da-da-_ BOOM.

“The frag - there are drums down there!” he blurted, and this time someone did laugh.

“That there are,” Megatron said, his chuckle still audible in his voice. “Kaon is the beating fuelpump of Cybertron, medic, and has been for long ages before the mines began to run dry. I could walk from one side of the city to the other with nothing but the vibrations of the factories and drills to guide me and never lose my way - the night of the Homeless is when the machinery shuts down and we make our own music.”

“That’s - that’s amazing. They’ve gotta be huge for us to hear them this far up.”

“Oh, some are. Others are small enough for you to carry one yourself, but there are other drums large enough that it takes someone of my frametype or taller to use them.”

“There’s pockets of drummers all the way down into the pits,” Sideswipe blurted, unable to stop himself now that he was finally allowed to spill. “The sound comes from all around and it gets right into your frame, you’ll love it!”

“Although it’s a good thing we’ll all be going through the paints together,” Megatron mused, something in his voice making Drift’s engine rev a warning. “Just so you’ll know what to expect.”

“Paints?” Ratchet demanded, and Sideswipe cackled.

*

As they descended into Kaon - the place was more a series of pits than a collection of towers, but the sheer scale of the excavations was enough to impress even Ratchet’s Iaconian sensibilities - the drumming grew louder and louder, and the pathway grew harder and harder to see. Ratchet clicked his forward lights on only to be growled at by Megatron. “You’re ruining my vision, medic. Follow my biolights if you need guidance.”

“Is it usually this dark?” Ratchet asked, pained and trying not to ride Megatron’s treads.

“Nope,” Sideswipe answered. “This is a Trek thing. You can’t see the paints if you’re all floodlit.”

“There’s that paints thing again,” Ratchet complained. “Is someone finally going to clue me in or- _augh!_ ”

His fender bonked into Megatron’s treads, and the big mech’s laugh cut off Ratchet’s complaint that _people need to indicate when they’re stopping Primus-friggit!_ “Look,” Megatron commanded, and for all Ratchet didn’t believe in titles, even he responded to that voice from the Lord Protector. He transformed, gingerly eased up to the edge of the spiralling roadway and gazed down into the pit.

For a moment he didn’t understand what he was seeing. It was almost like looking down on a lake of oil reflecting a brilliant starry sky, except the ‘stars’ were whirling and spinning wildly. As his optics slowly adjusted to the low light levels he realized that the stars were glowing paint on the hands and pedes of thousands of dancing mechanisms, seemingly the entire population of Kaon.

“That’s the face I wanted to see,” Megatron proclaimed, transforming to grin at him. For once, Ratchet was at an utter loss for words.

“See what I mean?” Sideswipe transformed at his other side, grinning like a youngling at Ratchet’s expression. “We’re gonna go down, go through the paints and spend the next three on-shifts drinking and dancing like there’s no tomorrow.”

Ratchet reset his optics, shaking his head slightly - the lights whirled and pulsed far below, drawing his gaze down into the dark, and if he wasn’t careful he’d wind up missing something important, like the edge of the road or the others leaving without him. He filed the sight away into his long-term memory storage, tagging it carefully, then fixed Sideswipe with a Look. “Drinking and dancing, huh?”

“Yup! Better decide where you want those paints, mech; there’s gonna be plenty of volunteers down there to help out~”

“Shut up, Sideswipe,” Sunstreaker said flatly, stomping up beside his brother. This close the drums reverberated through the metal beneath their pedes, and Ratchet actually felt the impact of Sunstreaker’s steps like a counterpoint; he’d never been so aware of the ground under him. He didn’t have the same sensor ranges as the Kaon-constructed mechs, but the thudding beat worked its way up through the floor and made him itch to move.

Slag, he really had been in Iacon too long.

Ratchet grinned, his expression just a little wolvish in the dimly-reflected lights, and only smiled wider at Sideswipe’s abruptly-dumbfounded look. “Sounds good. Which way to the paint?”

*

Down in the pits, the drumbeat was a rising thunder that caught a mech by the scruff and made everything in their frame boom. Ratchet hustled after the twins and found himself alongside Drift again as they made for what looked like luminescing oil barrels. He gave the thick crowd of mechs around the barrels a skeptical look and turned to the smaller mech, giving up on his vocaliser - the drums rolled around the pits like a Vosian thunderstorm and made any ordinary vocaliser noise impossible to pick up. //That the paints?//

//Yeah.// Drift seemed to hesitate, his sharply-pointed helm cocking to one side as he looked sidelong up at Ratchet. //You want any help?//

Ratchet scrutinised the barrels, squinting at what was- oh, there were the twins, perfect. Sideswipe scrambled over to a barrel with scrapes and dribbles of glowing golden light inching down its sides and plunged his hands in up to the elbows, coming back up with his hands trailing streamers of shining paint. He wiped fingerfuls of the excess over the sharp lines of his cheeks, smeared his palms down the outsides of his arms like racing stripes, and hopped on one leg to scrub what remained over the other pede before dipping in again for more. Sunstreaker, by contrast, hung back and considered briefly before striding purposefully over to a barrel that glowed smelter-red.

//Think I got it,// he commed back, and craned his neck to see what other colours there were. Purple - meh; green - heck no; blue...hmm. Maybe.

Ratchet pushed his way into the huddle around the barrels, meaning he missed the way Drift’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly. Megatron came up behind his Second and _loomed_ meaningfully.

//I notice you’re not exactly rushing in to help him.//

//Said no,// Drift replied, a touch of defensiveness in his field. /Not gonna if he said no.//

Megatron snorted, and Drift didn’t bother wondering how that of all things carried through the drums. //This is ridiculous. You are _both_ ridiculous. I meant what I said, either ask him and be done with it or _I’ll_ tell him.//

//Not. Helping,// Drift gritted out, and shoved his way into the crowd around the barrels before Megatron could _sigh_ at him again.

*

Trek dancing in Kaon could be rough, as Ratchet quickly learned. There was stomping, shouting, spinning around and paint spatters _everywhere._ There was also _energon_ everywhere - condensed highgrade in solid and liquid forms, free-flowing fountains, a cube in practically every hand. Kaon was enjoying its newfound energy wealth to the fullest, and taking a sip of his first cube of the night, Ratchet had to admit they knew how to treat their fuel. Then a couple of dancers jostled him into spilling the cube all over himself.

“Oh, slag, sorry, mech!” one of them burst out when Ratchet shouted in alarm.

“Uh - we could lick it off you?” offered the other, giggling.

“Gah.” Ratchet accepted a rag from the bartender. “Not drunk enough for that, thank you. ...you could teach me how to dance like a Kaonite, how’s that?”

Two cubes and a round of dancing later, Ratchet had learned something else: these Kaonites, to a mech, _knew how to party._

His guides had seemed highly amused at teaching a shiny Iaconian how to dance, and Ratchet had the distinct impression that ‘shiny’ wasn’t a compliment from mechs who up until recently had been stuck working down failing mines far from the surface, but whether it was thanks to the cubes or the enthusiasm of his teachers he felt like he was getting the hang of things. It wasn’t about the steps, or even hitting the drumbeat at the same time as everyone else - the whole city moved together, syncopated and out of time and moving around each other, their frames all part of a greater whole. Smelter-colours flashed past his optics, streaks of brilliant paint leaving trailing after-images, and Ratchet threw himself into the surging bodies with a war cry that even Megatron might have approved of.

This far from the road they had taken down into the pit, Ratchet could feel in the way the crowd of dancers surged together that there was some sort of pattern to the dance, but frag if he could figure it out from right in the thick of things. What light there was past the luminous paints came from deep vents that shouldered up through the floor, the thick, rich light pouring from them striping the mechs that whirled past in forge-red, gold and amber - dancers split to circle left and right around the vents as they chose with no pattern but moving together, and Ratchet spun and stamped his pedes to music he could feel down to his struts, laughing out loud.

“See if I spend another Trek in Iacon!” he crowed, and the mechs around him cheered their approval whether or not they’d heard a word he said.

Something shifted in the thunder of the drums, and another roar rose from the frames moving together, loud enough to be heard over the pounding of both drums and pedes. Before he knew what he was doing Ratchet was bellowing along with them, a wordless burst of sound as the dance slowed its frantic pace - the drummers were changing over, he remembered, and didn’t jump as the huge mineframe beside him slammed her palms against her sides, against her hips and thighs, adding her own percussion to the weight of sound as the dancers downshifted into something less tumultuous.

At the edges of the pit road, Drift stood by and watched Ratchet, and trembled faintly.

Megatron had given him a short Look before going to join the dance himself, and was currently cutting a breathtaking figure on the floor, streaked with red and blue. Drift’s instincts said to watch him, guard him - even here, the Lord Protector had enemies - but Ratchet’s careless, slightly drunken _abandon_ as he danced was hard to look away from. He was grinning, laughing, shouting with the other dancers, fighting back the darkness and the things that lurked there with the strength of his spark and the fearlessness of his body.

Drift gulped down the rest of his cube against the roil of his tanks, and pushed his way back to the roadway and the paints as the container dissipated. He had his own paints to do.

*

Maybe it was the music and maybe it was the energon, but when the first sparkeater appeared Ratchet barely blinked.

Then what he’d seen sank in and he stumbled - an eerie figure passing through the crowd, fluttering skeins of something sinuous flaring and arcing in the heat of the vents, luminous midsection glowing with captured sparks-

“The _frag,_ ” he blurted, lost under the sound of the drums, but backpedalling to reassure himself would get him nowhere. Lurching into a turn, he came face to face with a face like something out of a nightmare and a shock of mindless terror hit him full force-

-then the mech painted up like a sparkeater grinned back at him, winked one optic on and off and playfully snapped at the air before whirling away. The things Ratchet had thought were tentacles brushed lightly against his plating - scraps of something flimsy and lightweight, positioned to flare up whenever they caught an updraught - and the wave of amazed relief had him giggling like a newbuild. Him! Scared of sparkeaters! Either he’d had too much to drink or he was getting way too into this.

“Hey!” someone shouted in his audial. “You all right?”

“Fine,” Ratchet yelled back, but on balance it probably wouldn’t kill him to grab another cube. He’d been dancing for- frag, for how long? - and if he wasn’t now, he’d definitely be due a top-up by the time he made it back to the edge of the pits. After working his way so far into the throng, Ratchet had to loop around the great wheel of dancers, clockwork his way around several ominously-glowing vents, and spotted several more ‘sparkeaters’ to reach the edge.

Part-way back to the edge of the pit floor there was an irregular outcrop of old, melted slag that had overflowed some long-disintegrated tank, and some merciful spark had thought to use one of the nooks there as an energon pit-stop for dancers who couldn’t get back to the edge of the dancing fast enough, or who just needed a quick top-up before heading out again. Grabbing a solid cake of energon - and Primus fragging smile up at whoever thought of that! - Ratchet shoved the energy bar into his mouth and hung on to the runnelled metal to cool his systems without being swept back up into the dancing. From here he could see more of the turns of the crowd, and briefly spotted Megatron head and shoulders above a smaller pack of Kaonites dancing with him - no sign of the twins, or Drift, and no surprise that he couldn’t pick out the on-duty guards that were undoubtedly around here somewhere. 

Chewing thoughtfully, Ratchet reached for a smaller cube of coolant - then promptly dropped the damn thing when more of that glowing, pearly spark-bright paint glittered in the corner of his optic. Grabbing for another cube and clutching at his handhold before he lost his balance, Ratchet turned to see what was trying to give him a spark attack _now._

Drift strode out along the outcrop, the same hand-print of silver paint marking his face as the other ‘sparkeater’ that had startled Ratchet before. Silvery ribbons fluttered from his arms, a long, rust-red drape fell away from the tie at his hips to flare out with every step he took, and the glimmering sparkeater paint ran down his belly, speckled his thighs and dripped from his hands like liquid starlight.

Moon-pale pedes scuffed the uneven ground, and Ratchet’s mouth fell open as Drift began to dance.

It was not the powerful stomping dance Ratchet and his new friends had been doing - that looked like graceless flailing now next to the winding movements of Drift’s hips. Drift arched, bent one leg up and spun on the other pede, ribbons flying out as he lifted his arms. For Ratchet, the world melted away, the low and powerful vibrations of the greater Trek dance the only thing keeping him anchored to himself as Drift danced.

He wasn’t the only one whose attention Drift had thoroughly captured. Someone honked their horn in appreciation, another yelled a come-on, barely audible over the thunder of the dancers. Drift ignored them utterly, seeming lost in the display of naked sensuality, but Ratchet became aware - through the fog of _oh dear Primus yes please_ \- that Drift was slowly making his way along the outcrop towards him.

Drift slunk and undulated and flowed like steelsilk along the length of the outcrop, following the extinction burst of that ancient cauldron and finding places to step down along the edges of the long-cold roil, until he was close enough that Ratchet could feel the whisper of ribbons as Drift moved. Ratchet’s vocalizer engaged; before he could shut it down again, it produced a sound that until the end of his life Ratchet would never admit was a whimper. Drift paused before him, still high enough that he was half a frame taller than the medic, hips rocking gently and - Ratchet’s knees went weak - looking him full in the optics.

//Hey,// Drift said, and Ratchet couldn’t look away. //Dance with me?//

*

Maybe not the best line he could have used, but - of all the things Drift had forgotten in the Dead End, all the holes he’d punched through his processor, this thing he’d never managed to lose. Some stupid, sentimental moments and a way of moving that one of Gasket’s friends knew, had carried all the way to Iacon, only to sink into the Pit and never leave it. Drift remembered stars turning overhead as he’d stumbled and laughed and tripped over his own pedes, the brief freedom of using his body just for himself, just for its own sake, a memory he’d managed to hold on to for all that it was a little ragged around the edges. There may have been more like it, once, but this one he’d managed to keep.

Ratchet blinked up at him, something in his optics Drift couldn’t quite read. Lust he knew and dreaded, for all he was resigned to it, but Ratchet - Ratchet he trusted enough to go this far. He hadn’t put himself out on display since Megatron, since he figured out that a berthwarmer with a gun wasn’t what Megatron wanted, but he kept his optics on Ratchet and focussed on the medic’s field and never let himself fall still. The guns in his subspace were a last resort if anyone in the crowd got handsy.

//Sure,// Ratchet said, hoarse and unsteady, and took a step back towards the turns of the Trek dance to give Drift space to jump the rest of the way down from the slagspill. Before he could move, Ratchet held out his hand, and Drift felt his vents slam shut. He stared for just a click too long and Ratchet shifted awkwardly on his pedes, and then the thought of Ratchet pulling his hand away was suddenly the worst thing in the world. Drift caught it up quickly in his own rough one and scrambled down, more gutters haste than dancer’s grace, but didn’t give himself the luxury of thinking it over. He led Ratchet back to the edge of the pit, following the movement of the whirling dancers as hot air sent the ribbons tied to his frame spiralling upwards.

//So,// he commed again, rounding an outcrop thick enough to block some of the sound of the dance - and promptly wished he could take it back. Ratchet didn’t seem to notice his substructure wincing away from the stupid line, and part of Drift’s spark shrank away from how the medic’s gaze lingered over the silver paint dripping down Drift’s frame.

//So,// Ratchet agreed, and Drift’s optics flicked back up to Ratchet’s face in surprise he couldn’t help showing. Ratchet’s gaze roamed Drift’s face, and with a startle Drift realised that this time it really _was_ the paint the medic was looking at. //Any reason for the costume?// Ratchet continued, almost idly but for the hot vents Drift could feel against his own frame. //I get you’re a sparkeater, just not sure why.//

Oh. //’S a thing they do here,// Drift shrugged, pretending to nonchalance as Ratchet’s optics followed the motion. //Keeps the real sparkeaters out. No point going after all the mechs dancing around if there’s too much competition.//

//Huh. Smart.// Head tilted, Ratchet’s gaze didn’t leave Drift’s face as he shrugged again. //You’re not from Kaon.//

//Nope.//

//Never seen anyone from Iacon dance like that, either. If I had to guess I’d say that was a Polyhexian style.//

Drift couldn’t remember where the mech had been from, and he doubted that they had remembered too clearly either. //Wouldn’t know,// he replied, watching Ratchet’s expression under the paint. //Only passed through once. Used to know a mech who knew a mech, though.//

//So the twins weren’t kidding, huh? Drinking and dancing ‘til the Trek’s over. I like it.// 

There was a pause, one where Drift wracked his processor for something, anything to say, before Ratchet beat him to it. //So,// he said, a grin of his own pulling at his mouth, sounding - almost like he was trying to sound casual, but that couldn’t be right. //What happens at these things after the dancing?//

Drift snickered, remembering the last Kaon Trek he’d attended. //’S no _after_ for the dancing. Goes on for the whole thing, then everybody recharges for a whole cycle. Snoring’s as loud as the drums.//

Ratchet burst out laughing, his whole frame shaking with it even if Drift couldn’t hear a thing - he’d learned by now that his audials were too sensitive by far for the Trek drums, he’d turned them all the way down on approach and offlined them before they’d even started heading into the pits. Instead Drift drank in the sight of Ratchet’s full-frame laughter like a starving mech, the way his optics brightened and he threw his head back.

//Suits you,// Drift blurted, too caught up in the strut-rumbling shake of the drums and the way Ratchet laughed. //The drums. ...You look good.// _You look at home here. You look like I see you, like you could stand against all comers and hold the sparkeaters off all by yourself. ...I don’t want you to go join a hunt tonight._

Ratchet was watching him differently than he had before. Drift’s shoulders twitched up and his gaze skittered away, catching himself a moment later and cursing himself to the Dead End and _staying_ there. Like he didn’t know his own tells by now!

//Thanks,// the medic said, sounding almost - thoughtful. //Y’know, I’d thought you were with Megatron.//

//...huh?// That - wasn’t what Drift had been expecting to hear, and he blinked back at Ratchet in confusion. //Came here with him, you know that.//

//No, I meant- hang on. Lemme try again. Are you two dating?//

...oh. OH. //Oh frag no. He’s - he’s _Megatron,_ I wouldn’t frag him.// Wrinkling his nose at the thought, it took a moment for him to catch Ratchet’s quizzical expression for what it was. //I don’t- do that,// he said a little stiffly. //Megatron - was the first person to tell me I didn’t have to. ...he was the other person who said I could be better, after you.//

//...oh, kid.// 

Drift wasn’t at all sure what that look meant, and it was only exposure to the Kaonites and Orion’s strange Iaconian ways that gave him the vaguest of hints to go from. //’S okay. Makes a change telling people no.// He hesitated, then drew on every bit of courage he’d ever known. //Wouldn’t mind saying yes if it was you.//

//Kid - Drift - you don’t have to offer ‘cause you think you have to.// Drift _stared,_ an upsurge of hurt scourging him from the inside out and only the look in Ratchet’s optics stopped him from storming off. //I already like you. Would’ve asked you myself if I hadn’t thought you were exclusive with Megatron.//

//Then why’d you say no?//

//I didn’t. I’m just saying - well, I guess I’m saying you can say no to me too. You shouldn’t feel obliged to or any of that slag.//

//I don’t,// Drift managed through a knot of static. He was never, ever going to understand Iaconians, and he’d almost managed to forget when they both swayed to the drums that Ratchet wasn’t a Kaonite, or even a Dead End native - he was a shiny specialist from Iacon, for all he drank and swore and danced like a miner. Drift didn’t even know what he wanted, but the sinking feeling in his tanks told him sure as anything that he wasn’t going to get it.

Only Ratchet wasn’t leaving, just standing there with his helm tilted and that diagnosing sort of look creeping into his expression. //What?// Drift snapped, plating puffing out defensively, and instantly loathed himself even more for doing it, even when he had no idea what else he could have done.

//Just thinking,// Ratchet said evenly, and Drift’s tanks lurched. //That offer to dance still open? I wouldn’t mind learning how you did what you did out there, if you don’t mind.//

Drift stared at him, confused and turned-around and, somehow, with a tiny, timid glimmer of hope rising in his spark. //...sure.//

*

Some time later, there was a hullabaloo that breached even the thunder of the drums. Ratchet, laughing hard enough that he was hanging off the wall of the pit to stay standing, tilted his head and wiped at his optics as he did it, smudges of blue glittering in streaks over the sharp lines of his face. //Somethin’ going on out there we should know about?//

Strangely, Drift didn’t feel quite so knotted-up about the answer after teaching Ratchet not to fall over his own pedes. //’S a hunt. Someone decides they wanna get chased and caught and ‘faced, bunch of mechs go after ‘em. ‘S a free-for-all kinda thing.//

//Huh,// Ratchet said. //Fancy that. ...so, wanna show me that hip-wiggle thing again? I reckon I almost got it that time.//

Drift grinned. //Keep tellin’ yourself that,// he said, and contentedly showed Ratchet again.


	7. Drift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Trek...things seem a little different. Drift tries out a few new things, like driving, self-discovery and holding hands.

Things were different after the Trek. Nothing Drift could quite put his finger on, but - there was a warmth under his plating he didn’t want to share, fizzing and sweet like waiting for something good to happen. _Anticipation,_ Megatron muttered, giving them both another one of his Looks when he thought Drift wasn’t paying attention. Ratchet smirked, meeting Drift’s optics with a waggle of his optic ridges that would have done Megatron proud, and Drift grinned so hard it almost hurt.

He felt _good._

He didn’t think he’d ever felt so good, like he’d _changed_ somehow over the Trek. Transforming to march back up the stairway to the Senate and Prime’s Compounds, Drift kept his optics on the mechs moving back and forth, but the sweet-feeling kept on bubbling up through his systems - the sneering looks of the cyberleeches that lived and worked in the Senate didn’t touch him, didn’t still it. Ratchet waved and headed back towards the Prime’s Compound’s medbay as Drift followed Megatron through the halls to Orion, and something warm and crooked in him quirked into a smile that Drift didn’t want to waste on the smirkers in the Senate.

//Hey,// he commed before Ratchet quite vanished from sight. //You still on-shift in a cycle?//

Ratchet paused, a glint of solid white armour at a junction. //I’m gonna be on for a while to catch up on everything from the Trek,// he replied, sounding - the bubbles surged - intrigued and a little thoughtful. //But I could use some company when I’m working through all the paperwork, if you’re bored.//

//Guess I could head down then,// Drift drawled, and hugged his grin to himself as Ratchet pinged back a dry _acknowledged_.

“You are both ridiculous,” Megatron rumbled. Drift shrugged, a sliver of happiness slipping free and curving his mouth like it or not. “Well, hopefully this means you won’t be peering at him around corners now.”

Drift straightened, stung. “Frag off,” he retorted. “Nothin’ wrong with peering. Soundwave don’t seem to mind when you watch his aft in the archives.”

That earned him a cough of hot air through Megatron’s vents, and a reluctant sort of smirk in return. “I maintain no-one would blame me,” the Lord Protector said airily, and Drift snorted, shaking his head. “Still, it’s good to see you’ve come to some kind of arrangement with the medic. I hear he’s an utter sensualist off-duty, so you picked a good one.”

“...uh.” _Wait, what?_ “Not sure which of us is missin’ the point, here.”

Megatron frowned at him, but then Orion came into view and the whole thing was shelved in favour of catching up.

*

Drift did wind up going down to the medbay when his shift was over. Ratchet worked longer shifts than Drift did, but most of what he worked on these days was administrative stuff with data pads and schedules everywhere. Drift propped himself on the end of a berth and listened as Ratchet groused, soaking in the quiet comfort of strong lights and smells and Ratchet’s voice. Now and again there was something he could actually contribute - he’d been in and out of the Kaon medbay with Sawbones often enough, even after his first armour fitting - and the determined flicker of Ratchet’s optics and the smiles he earned brought the fizzing in his lines back full force. 

It turned out Ratchet tended to forget to fuel up when he was handling all those datapads, so Drift wound up heading over the next time his off-cycle and Ratchet’s admin shift matched up - they spent Ratchet’s break comparing additives and breaking into Ratchet’s stash of flavourings. Drift had no idea that the drawers of a solid, staid, overloaded desk could hide additives and snacks and those clear swizzle-stick goodies on sticks, and his spark did something funny when he realised that Ratchet hid fuel caches just like he did.

Well. Not _quite_ like he did. Ratchet would sometimes talk about going through medical training, the classes and homework and working all shifts and cycles as a junior medic, and Drift just propped his chin in his hands and listened in fascination. He had no idea what it was like, growing up with lessons and timetables and prep work to do, and Ratchet’s stories sounded like another world entirely. Funny how it led to both of them stashing fuel around where they could in case of emergencies, though depending on when Drift was thinking about it _funny_ could be _funny ha-ha_ or _funny-painful_ , depending on his mood.

The best thing, the absolute best thing in the world, was when Ratchet looked up as Drift slipped into his office, and smiled like he was just the person Ratchet had wanted to see.

“Hey,” Ratchet greeted him, and Drift grinned. He’d been doing that a lot more often lately too. “Perfect timing - how do you fancy heading out to the racetrack?”

“Huh?”

Ratchet reset his optics at the look of blank confusion on Drift’s face, like he really couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You know, the track. Outside the compound, few levels down? ...no. No? Seriously?”

“Never seen it,” Drift muttered, not sure he liked the look of incredulity on Ratchet’s face directed at him for once. Ratchet stared for a click or two longer, then shook his plating back into place.

“Well, now’s as good a time as any to go look. Right?”

Drift tilted his head, decided to take it as the apology Ratchet seemed to be hinting at - _Iaconians!_ \- and lingered by the door as Ratchet picked himself up from behind his desk. The medic stuffed a few datapads from the desk into his subspace, rummaged for and ‘spaced a cube or two, then grabbed a big boxy carrier with the same red stamps on it as Ratchet’s shoulders and altmode. _Medic, safe._

“I’m still on shift, technically speaking,” Ratchet said conversationally as they headed into the hall. “There’s a time trial going on for the younglings looking to move into working as messengers and runners for the Guard, so I’m heading down to keep an optic on things.” At Drift’s somewhat dubious look, he huffed and folded his arms. “All right, so I’m going a little stir crazy in that office. I swear, I’m doing more data-pushing now than when I worked at the hospital.”

“Still helping people,” Drift pointed out quietly, the words coming out rough and rasping. Slaggit, how did people make this stuff look easy? Ratchet huffed, but - Drift couldn’t help brightening when he noticed - his engine had downshifted into something humming and pleased, stepping out with a bit more bounce in his stride. _Does he really not know that? Don’t people tell him?_

“Yeah, well. The worst I’ve got to look forward to is probably gonna be a scraped tyre or some dumb kid flipping themselves over, but there’s always the chance of something worse with that amount of people on the track. They’re doing heats, so if you fancy trying out that altmode of yours for something that isn’t an endurance run to Kaon, you can see how the upgrade handles.”

Drift blinked, walking alongside in silence. Those long, steady drives were the furthest he’d ever travelled in his altmode - in the Dead End all he’d ever done was transform for a few easy credits from a fetishist or two, and that didn’t count as _driving._ He’d only known he was a speed frame from the dirty talk he got, and Gasket worrying about how fast his frame lost heat when they recharged or when Drift was out in the stars on something. He’d never _raced._ He’d never had the energy to try; it had never occurred to him that he _could_.

“I guess so,” he said slowly, and tried to take comfort from Ratchet’s grin rather than show just how dubious he felt.

*

The racetrack was crowded all right, but it turned out the organisers had been sensible enough to cordon off one of the more obstacle-based tracks to put their cadets through their paces. Ratchet went over to check himself in, waving a goodbye to Drift as he headed off to the medical encampment at the edge of the appointed track. Drift...hovered, not sure what to do with himself, then drew back from the track’s check-in point when the cadets started nudging each other and pointing at him. They were all little, speed-frame younglings with light armour in bright shiny colours, and Drift looked down at himself dubiously. He might have wound up going for paint a few shades paler than his old armour’s primer-grey in some places, and edging bits of plates with red here and there - that had made Megatron’s optic ridges shoot up so fast they practically clattered against his helm - but _he_ didn’t think he looked like much of a glossy, leggy racer like a lot of upper-level Iaconians.

Leaving the younglings and their staring behind, Drift ambled around some, checking the tracks out one at a time. The obstacle ones were set up like artfully-messy streets, and Drift snorted at the one done out in dark metals and with meaningless graffiti scrawls painted on in flash-pretty neon colours. _Wouldn’t know Dead End if it hit ‘em in the helm and dug for subspace._ He wound up loitering near one that looked pretty simple by the standards of some of the tracks - no way was he stupid enough to try going upside down! - and caught the optic of the mech checking racers in. They ushered him in, not-so-subtly looking him over, and Drift growled his engine sharply in warning. That stopped the looky-loos pretty quick, even if it wouldn’t stop the attention when he screwed up later.

He’d seen enough, wandering around the place, to know to transform before reaching the stop-here line, settling in to rumble his engine (wasting fuel!) and wait for the coloured beeps dangling overhead to go off. There were a few mechs whipping around the track already, and newbies got spaced out when they came in on the outer ring to make sure nobody smashed up. He heard the gap in the engine sounds before the lights came on, but waited for the multicoloured _bip...bip...beep_ to sound before he pulled out, pushing against the carefully gritty surface and already moving faster than he had done in altmode for most of his life. The entry ramp brought him out onto a straight part of the track, the other racers at a distance still but coming up fast and loud enough to make his audials twinge. He dampened them rather than lose the input completely - Ratchet was safe enough where he was, surrounded by other medics, but there was no guarantee that Drift himself wouldn’t get jumped on the track - and cautiously ramped his speed up.

It was - okay, he supposed, for all he couldn’t quite stop himself from pinging his fuel gauge all along the straight. Every bit of him moved clean and smooth, more evidence that Ratchet was _the best medic,_ and there was a stretching, warming satisfaction in going faster and faster and not _hurting._

Just as he thought he was getting the hang of why people did this slag often enough to have a dedicated track for it, the first turn came up. Drift swore, sharp and startled, and hit the brakes in total amateur panic as he drove headlong into the turn. It was-

It was...

It was _amazing._

His axels burned, the gritty track clung to his tyres, everything in his frame compensating perfectly for the strain and the turn as he skidded and _slid_ at full speed around the corner, and Drift was so startled he almost didn’t manage to throw himself back into the straight in time but _still_ his aft end barely wobbled at the shift.

_What the slag did I just-?_

//Haha, nice!// another racer cheered, rounding the corner behind him, much more slowly and without that gorgeous skid. //You oughta be on the drift tracks!//

//...what?//

//Those niiice corners!// the mech called, and flickered her lights at him as she accelerated past him and into another straight. //Hot drift, sweetspark!//

_..........what? That’s - what?_

_Is that what I just did?_

Another corner was coming up fast, and this time Drift accelerated towards it. He flung himself into the turn, his entire frame working smooth as fragging _steelsilk_ and nothing had ever felt this good, as good as learning to shoot, this was like pistols for his altmode, this was-

This was what his name meant.

It was a revelation, and for a second he _felt_ it, felt it in the burn of his axels and the thundering roar of his engine, felt it in how his systems worked faster, harder, hotter, like he could go forever and never come down and this time _he controlled it._ He wasn’t drifting - unmoored and aimless and _useless_ to anyone, himself included; _he could drift._ He could hit a curve and ride it past all endurance and still come out gunning his engine, ready for more.

The world shook around him and Drift revved his engine right back, a fierce, primal joy burning better than any booster.

_I know who I am._

*

It took a long time for the glow to fade, for his surroundings to filter back in as anything but _track_ and _obstacles._ When it did, slowly but surely, Drift realised that he’d been driving for long enough that pretty much everyone else had left. He’d been going for almost a whole shift turn and everyone had moved on, either to go back on duty or off to do something else.

That realisation had a few more following on its wheels, like how that hot, aching accomplished feeling all through him was beginning to filter into little niggling twinges from axels and underbelly and that his fuel tank was starting to complain. _Wow._ That, and Ratchet was leaning against the barrier around the edge of the track, watching Drift drive around in circles with a grin on his face. That was another pretty good reason to find the off-ramp, and as Drift slowed to finish his circuit and nose his way back to the edge of the track _everything_ started to ache. It didn’t feel like damage and it was still better than anything withdrawal had ever put him through, and he transformed with a non-stop grin of his own as Ratchet headed towards him.

Lucky thing, since Drift transformed and promptly fell over his own pedes.

“Woah!” 

Strong arms caught him, and Drift took a second just to dangle and let his fans roar. “Oops,” he said, and okay, his voice was hoarse and kind of giddy. Ratchet propped him back on his pedes and gave him a once-over, one optic ridge raising along with the corner of his mouth.

“I take it we had fun,” he drawled, and Drift didn’t even bother trying to hide all the happy that bubbled up inside.

“I _drift,_ ” he breathed, feeling it all over again like the first sip of a clean cube, like poetry, like an aching break finally set and welded in right. Ratchet reset his optics, puzzlement all over his features, and Drift let out the laugh building inside as he realised Ratchet’s fans had clicked on to cope with the heat Drift himself was putting off. “I didn’t even know!”

“Huh.” Ratchet’s head cocked, but he bobbed down to pick up the heavy square case he must have dropped to catch Drift. “I’m glad you do now, then. Want some help back to quarters?”

Drift nodded, and let himself burrow into Ratchet’s side as the medic offered his free arm in support. Ratchet was safe, Ratchet had _turned him down,_ and Ratchet smelled so good and Drift felt so good he - he didn’t even _know_ right now. Ratchet huffed in surprise, but said nothing in favour of tucking Drift in close.

_Best. Cycle. Ever._

*

“Got a question for you,” Ratchet said, hands busy in one of his medkits. Drift looked up from the set of spanners laid out over his lap, hands hovering with cloth and cleanser, and made an enquiring noise - _go ahead, Ratch._ The medic didn’t say anything right away, and Drift’s mouth pursed. 

“Something up?” he asked, and this time a wisp of his concern filtered out. _Something wrong?_

Ratchet shook his head, then paused, glancing over at the berth Drift was perching on. “Not so much,” he said slowly, and the look he was sending Drift’s way made Drift want to shift around on the berth. “Look, I’ve been wondering - I know you said you weren’t into ‘facing, and I’m assuming that goes for plugs and ports as well as any other arrays either of us have just to be sure, but how do you feel about holding hands?”

Something had clearly fritzed in Drift’s processor, because that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. “...huh?” he managed, trying to clear the sudden flood of adrenaline and, weirdly, that bubbling tingle from before out of his lines so he could focus. Thankfully Ratchet acknowledged the need for _explanations please **what**_ and didn’t leave it there.

“I like you,” he said bluntly, and Drift about fell off the medberth along with the spanner set. “I like talkin’ to you, kid, seein’ you is the bright point in my cycle. I was wondering if you wanted to try something in a more casual dating kind of thing than we got now, or if you’re happy as we are.”

“Wuh,” Drift said faintly. 

“No ‘facing,” Ratchet swore - and the thing was, Drift _believed_ him. Maybe it was the medbay smell or Ratchet’s bluntness, but he really _did_. “I know you don’t want to, I ain’t gonna push for that and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want. I’m a grown mech, I got some self control.”

Drift sat, wordless and unable to come close to interpreting what his insides were doing. Ratchet knew him well enough to give him some time to process, try to find some words again, but he just - he-

“If you wanna think about it,” Ratchet began, glancing away, and the sludging _stoic_ voice grated on Drift’s audials and made his spark feel tight and hot and small like he’d been treading on it.

“What’re you thinking,” he forced out, and it was _worth it_ despite the flat, grating way it came out, if it meant Ratchet meeting his optics again.

“Not all that much different to what we normally do,” Ratchet said almost too casually, and Drift’s nose scrunched in confusion before he could mask it. _I **do** trust him. Not because he’s a medic - because he’s the sarcastic smart fragger that remembers what I do and don’t want._ Confusion and warmth and that fluttery bright fizz all ran together, but slaggit Drift wanted to hear this, if only to explain it in his own helm. “Dating’s normally fragging around and getting to know each other better, but we skipped the one an’ we’re already doing the other. I’m thinking - well, I’m thinking meeting up for fuel someplace that isn’t my office and holding hands in public, honestly. Saying we...mean something to each other.”

 _You mean a whole lot to me._ The emotional response had formed long before Drift’s processor got anywhere close, straight out of those wispy bits of warm consideration and tingles. He swallowed it down before his vocaliser could get in on anything and make an idiot out of him. “So - staking a claim?” he asked instead, not sure he was entirely getting it, and had that much confirmed when Ratchet winced. “Okay, so, no.”

“Frag, I’m not getting this right,” Ratchet huffed; mostly to himself, it seemed like. He ran a hand over his face, and Drift kind of wanted to touch the crinkles at the corners of his optics. A little. Just with his fingertips. “I guess - I suppose what I’m really asking for is permission to touch. Holding hands, sharing fuel. Little things. I’m not gonna insist we’re exclusive, and I still need to ask if you’re okay with me sharing charge with other people or not if we do this, but I’d like to try. With you.”

_Sharing fuel, sharing warmth. Looking out for each other, standing guard over injury or withdrawal or when one of them wasn’t entirely at home in their processor. Someone safe, someone reliable. Someone who cared._

_I guess I **have** done something like this before._

Drift cycled his vents, and gave Ratchet a crooked, hopeful sort of smile. “They’d better treat you right,” he said, and Ratchet’s optics brightened in turn. “...yeah. I wanna try too.”

_I trust you._

*

Ratchet was serious about holding hands.

It both confused the heck out of Drift and warmed him in ways he couldn’t explain, especially after they’d had a grave and _totally serious_ discussion on whether Drift had a dominant hand he needed to keep free in case he had to grab a weapon, and just how sensitive medics’ hands were. (Not so much, it turned out, not for day-to-day stuff. Ratchet could dial the sensitivity in his hands up to a level that let him do surgery without even needing to _look,_ but that wasn’t exactly practical outside of emergencies - or unless he dropped something in the oil baths, maybe.) Drift was still careful not to hold on too tight, but...it was nice. The asking, and the broad, strong warmth of Ratchet’s hand around his.

_“This isn’t about - marking somebody, or fencing you off,” Ratchet had said, his face as serious as Drift had ever seen him. “You ever fall hard for someone and wanna go be exclusive with them, trine up, whatever, you just let me know. I know some people do. Me, I’m happier seeing a few people at once, but that mostly translates to fragging around with friends these days. You mind that?”_

_“Guess you’d know better’n me if they’re treating you good,” Drift said, when words came back to him. Ratchet’s calm, mostly-steady gaze was doing something to his insides that felt like he was falling apart in an oil bath, and it was doing a number on his concentration. “Don’t mind if y’wanna keep ‘facing people.”_

Ratchet had _walked him to his duty station,_ holding hands all the way through the halls like it was no big deal. Drift couldn’t tell half the time if he was stumbling along the floor like an idiot or walking on the ceiling, and when Ratchet gave him a smile and a gentle handsqueeze, wished him a good shift and headed back to the medbay, Drift was a mute, knock-kneed mess trembling in the open doorway of Megatron’s office. 

_If there really is a god that gives a slag about any of us, I know they’re a medic with hands as kind as his._

The door slid open behind him. “For once, I’m glad this shift is mostly datawork,” Megatron drawled from his desk, and Drift wobbled past Soundwave standing at the door controls and into the room entirely on automatic. The bigger mech let the door slide shut behind him and followed Drift into the office on quiet pedes, Sunstreaker glancing up in faintly-frowning confusion from the datapad he held in his lap. “So,” Megatron continued, leaning forward at his desk and lacing his fingers together with an air of a mech only barely holding onto the gleeful urge to pester for details. “How is the good doctor?”

Apparently Drift’s face did something weird without his say-so; Megatron snorted and Sunstreaker started grinning. “He’s good,” Drift said a little defensively, and Megatron roared with laughter at the change in his expression.

“He must be! Sit down before you fall down, I don’t even want to know what your energy levels must be like.”

Drift flopped into his usual chair, the happy haze fogging his processor clearing under the bite of irritation at not getting the joke. “Either frag off or share,” he groused, and Megatron snickered but tossed a bundle of goodies over the stack of datapads on his desk. Soundwave settled into his own place just beside Megatron, his field mercifully neutral; Sunstreaker said nothing, only a confused little puckering of his optic ridges suggesting that something wasn’t adding up, and Drift wasn’t looking at anything but picking out a kind of goodie he recognised, sludge the lot of them.

“ _Are_ you clanging Ratchet?” Sunstreaker said bluntly, and Drift twitched backwards in almost offended surprise.

“Uh, no? Why?”

Megatron made a noise very like an incredulous modem and threw his hands in the air. “Because you came floating in here like a twitterpated flier, after spending more time in the medbay than the rest of the medics!”

“So?” Drift demanded, heat crawling under his plating. “He _talks_ to me. He’s _smart._ He thinks I’m _funny,_ frag knows why. And!” he snapped, pointing a finger sharply at Megatron when the other mech began to bluster. “He was fine with _not fragging me._ ”

“Then what _are_ you doing to make you come wobbling in here like that?” Megatron sputtered out, utterly exasperated and clearly beginning to wish he’d never asked. Drift glowered at him, then turned his gaze down to his hands, one unconsciously, protectively cradled in the other, the bag of goodies set aside in his lap.

“He held my hand,” he said softly, and Sunstreaker’s optics warmed visibly even as Megatron facepalmed.

“I despair of all of you,” Megatron muttered, and dug into the pile of datapads in a transparent attempt to save face.


	8. Iacon - Palmer's Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are cuddles, finger-biting, sharing a bed in both a sexual and non-sexual sense, and shower-based self-discovery. Also Drift making background snarky comments on the upcoming events of the Huge Megatron-And-Orion fic, as well as Crown of Cybertron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY GUYS WE REACHED THE PORN. :D Jumping ahead in the timeline again a little here, and SO MANY APOLOGIES for the gap between this chapter and the last one, December has been stupid busy this year augh. Warnings for - I guess a kind of mild medical-slash-dentistry type kink?, figuring out what you're doing on the fly, and half-asleep sex turning into 'woah, wait, waking up now' and talking about this stuff, and brief talk about past sex work and bad, painful, injurious sex. Brief! Promise. Things are much better now. :)

Sharing a berth with Ratchet had taken some negotiation. Drift got edgy when he couldn’t see the exits, and Ratchet didn’t like to recharge on his back; Ratchet was too used to having to respond to emergency pings in the middle of his recharge shift, and Drift still wasn’t all that used to sleeping on a berth at all. But they tried it, first lying on their sides facing each other with Ratchet’s back to the door, then getting up _again_ to change position when Drift started jumping at every little sound, unable to relax expecting someone to burst in and take potshots at Ratchet’s unprotected back, or sneak in with a knife and an empty cube...

“Ahhh, fragitall,” Ratchet growled eventually. He shifted around on the berth and Drift hunched a little, expecting to be kicked out - or at least be urged off the berth itself - but Ratchet arched his back and all but threw his hips around, landing on his side with a thump and a huff to face the door again. Drift’s nose wrinkled in confusion - hadn’t they tried this once? - but Ratchet nudged at his shoulder with a hand and gestured for him to roll over.

_Wait a click..._

Drift turned, slow and careful not to kick his berthmate, and thankfully managed to stifle his yelp when Ratchet’s arm settled around his waist to draw him back over the berth padding, flush against Ratchet’s chest. He lay still for a moment, stunned, and suddenly remembered where he’d done this before - Megatron, in the little alcove in Kaon, held safe and close without the expectation of being repaid for the first time since Gasket died.

He relaxed, a little bit at a time, and shifted just enough to be comfortable without moving away. Ratchet’s left arm crooked to support both their helms - Ratchet’s resting against his own shoulder and Drift’s against Ratchet's gauntlet - Ratchet’s hand tucked under Drift’s cheek, Ratchet’s other arm lying over Drift’s side with his right hand flat on the berth. Drift tucked his knees up against his belly, just shy of Ratchet’s elbow; Ratchet’s right knee touched the bottom of Drift’s pedes, other leg kicked out along the length of the berth. Drift felt the warmth of Ratchet’s frame sinking into his back, slowing his systems towards recharge and away from embarrassment and awkwardness, his uninterrupted view of the door growing pixelated and hazy.

“Okay?” Ratchet asked gruffly, and Drift warmed inside and out.

“Yeah,” he murmured back. “Thanks.”

*

It was interesting, having all this diplomatic stuff going on for Orion’s official You Are A Prime confirmation thing. ...well, on the one hand it was a total slaggin’ pain, if only because the jumped-up party planners Orion had hired on kept giving Drift those considering sort of looks that he would now and forever associate with Wing and the constant whispering behind his back, plus it was an extra security nightmare that Drift totally didn’t need after umpty-million assassins jumping out of nowhere. That part wasn’t the least bit fun and usually meant that the only time Drift got to see Ratchet was when they recharged together, and even then Drift tended to stagger into Ratchet’s quarters, pour a cube into his tanks and fall face-first into recharge in Ratchet’s lap.

...fine, so maybe the first couple of times that happened were nice, but still. He missed actually having the time to sit and talk to Ratchet, and that was not a thing he thought he’d ever get to say. 

On the other hand...on the other hand, the Dead End had been a mix of all kinds of frametypes and no-one really cared who was originally from where unless it actually mattered. Upper Iacon was okay if you liked that sort of thing, but after a while you forgot that there were other kinds of frametypes outside of ‘tall and mostly leg’. Now, though, there were Praxians and Polyhexians and big mechs and tiny mechs and warframes and even an aquatic or two, all wandering around talking with different accents and it was _nice,_ frag it all. Plus he’d never seen silk dancers before, so that was kind of neat.

Drift was utterly exhausted by the time it was over, strung out on adrenaline and his processor aching from working out shift rotations and squinting at reports where the glyphs kept moving around as he traied to read them and his helm full of gossip in every possible dialect outside of Vosian, but frag if he didn’t feel satisfied by the end of it. _They did it._ Him and his team, they kept everyone safe. They did good.

The joint-cracking hug he got from Ratchet when he said as much also helped, as did being able to recharge for a full off-shift and into the next on-shift without being needed. That was good too.

*

It wasn’t the first time Drift had woken to Ratchet’s knuckles pressed against his lips, or to find that he’d been recharging with his mouth open against Ratchet’s fingers. He’d never shared a berth with a mark safe enough or for long enough to fall into recharge, so no bad memories to jump out at him there, and Ratchet either didn’t mind or just hadn’t wanted to bring it up, which suited Drift fine. They’d been sharing a berth more often as time passed, which soothed more itches than Drift wanted to really think about, and he didn’t want to lose any of it to embarrassment or - misunderstandings.

He shifted a little, plating clacking softly against Ratchet’s solid frame as he moved, but the medic didn’t stir; his field was thick with sleep, as warm and comfortable as his body, and Drift let his optics dial back offline to enjoy it. He let his mouth close against Ratchet’s fingers, nice and quiet, pressing the flat of his denta against red plating and drawing in a deep breath through his vents. Ratchet always smelled good...

Drift’s jaw worked, just enough to rub a little against Ratchet’s knuckles, soothing the tender places where his worn-sharp denta were set into his mouth. They itched sometimes, right under his denta where they were rooted into his jaw and he couldn’t reach; whether it was from old damage he didn’t remember or from changing fuel grades Drift had never figured out, and it felt so good to at least try scratching at it that sometimes he pressed a little too hard with something too sharp and the sting lingered for a whole shift. That...usually wound up feeling good too, if he worried at it, but if he did that now any damage’d wind up getting Ratchet upset - although maybe then Ratchet’d look at his denta, and that thought made Drift squirm again as fuzzy sparking bubbles rose through his system, half awake and relaxed enough to enjoy it without second-guessing. He ground his denta together, just a little, and huffed softly at the feel of Ratchet’s bent finger-joint rubbing against protometal.

Stale air warmed the crest of his helm and Drift froze, snapping up from the last layer of recharge-fuzzies in an instant, unexplained guilt washing through him as Ratchet’s vents cycled online.

“Mmm.” Ratchet nosed sleepily against Drift’s helm, the brief plushness of his lip brushing against Drift’s plating and unaccountably making the smaller mech shiver. “Hey there. ‘M I gonna need to pick up a chew toy?”

“Sorry,” Drift whispered, his vocaliser failing, and had to reset his audials when Ratchet chuffed out a half-laugh.

“Don’ be. ‘S kinda cute. -hey, don’t, I mean it. C’mere, kid, I don’t have anywhere else to be right now, do you?”

Drift gradually lowered himself back down to the berth, his back still tucked up against Ratchet’s windshield and his mind whirling. “‘M gonna hurt your hand,” he pointed out, and Ratchet scoffed.

“Ain’t _that_ fragile, y’know. If it feels good, I’m all for it. ...any damage there I need to know about?”

Drift shook his head, and felt Ratchet’s satisfied smile seep through his field.

“There you go, then. ...mind if I turn the sensors up? Doesn’t feel all that bad for me, either.”

“Just that?” Drift said a little cautiously. _He - really likes this? We didn’t talk about **that**..._

“Just that,” Ratchet affirmed, his voice the kind of firm that made miracles happen in the medbay and settled any lingering worries from upsetting Drift’s tank. “Can’t promise I won’t overload, but no arrays or plugs involved. You mind that?”

Drift put that down as something to consider later, carefully snuggling back into Ratchet’s arms and shaking his head. _If it makes Ratchet feel good too...it’s not like there’s going to be cleanup, if it’s like tactile. And I - I kind of like it. He tastes good. ‘S only fair if he gets something out of me being weird._

The bent edge of Ratchet’s finger joint fitted into an itchy gap in Drift’s denta settings like it was meant to be there, and both of them sighed in something like relief as Drift carefully pressed down. _Much better._

Ratchet didn’t overload in the end, but there was something loose and relaxed in his field when Drift forced himself to stop chewing like a fraggin’ turbofox before he damaged something. “You done, there?” he asked, sounding almost ready to recharge again; Drift nodded, not trusting himself to summon up words. “Mmkay. Nothing hurts?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Mm-hmh.” Ratchet nuzzled his helm affectionately, and Drift hardly dared to so much as vent. “Ever wanna do that again, go ‘head. ‘S fine.”

“Sure,” Drift whispered, his whole mouth tingling, and snuggled into Ratchet’s arms as the medic’s systems sank back into an easy recharge.

*

Orion hadn’t even had a rude message back from Vos when he’d sent them an invite to his stupid mess of a confirmation ceremony way back when, so as far as everyone else knew Vos just didn’t care about Iacon. Drift knew different, mostly because he got to hear Megatron’s worries and he looked in on the archivists and admins when Megatron and Soundwave were pulling a double shift on something - that and people’d be amazed just how much gossip you pick up just walking the Senate halls. That Ratchet’s friend - and occasional frag-buddy, apparently - had managed to find the Vosian Heir’s long-lost partner still alive was a surprise. A good one, sure, but for all that Orion was optimistic... Well, Orion was usually optimistic, certainly in Drift’s opinion, but this time around Drift thought maybe that - yeah, okay, maybe he had a point. 

Plenty of things Drift would’ve been willing to do to get Gasket back, if it’d been an option back then.

It wasn’t as though Drift hadn’t believed it possible when he’d heard that finding the mech’s frame was an option, way back when the mission was being planned - it hadn’t really affected him, and he’d been busy - but he’d been more preoccupied with the visiting Praxian delegation and their handful of Vosian guests, at the time. The one important Vosian refugee wasn’t what he’d been expecting; if anyone had asked him then, Drift would have said he’d been expecting someone more like Megatron - principled, brave, and aggressive about it. This mech had jumped at his own shadow, and that made Drift uncomfortable. Just what didn’t they know about Vos, if this was how Nightlight reacted to Iaconians and Kaonites?

He wasn’t entirely comfortable being around their miniature younglings, either - there was something about the bright optics of the littlest one that made him feel as though Dash was seeing right through him, seeing far too much more than he should - but anyone who was that fierce in their own defence he had to respect, no matter how little and strange they were. Frag, half his team was a minibot trine who managed to out-sneak him often enough, and _their_ sparkling wound up being a perfectly normal-sized minibot. It was just...the stage leading up to that that made his head hurt.

Still. Having found Skyfire made Orion happy, and hearing that Wheeljack was on his way back made Ratchet happy, and that was enough for Drift. They’d figure something out, whatever this Starscream mech did.

*

Occasionally, when they were curled up together on Ratchet’s berth, Drift woke up to find Ratchet petting him. Nothing that made his plating stand on end, just the opposite - he’d online to find Ratchet’s thumb rubbing arcs back and forth against his side or chest as the medic thought to himself, or with a still-recharging Ratchet’s hand splayed over his belly, like he could check Drift’s status though his plating or like it was an anchor to keep Drift close as he dreamed. Usually Drift did his best to pretend he wasn’t entirely online yet, lying still and quiet to bask in such easy affection. It never worked for long, not with a medic for a berth-partner, but Ratchet didn’t call him on it until Drift deliberately stirred like he was waking. When Ratchet was in recharge himself...Drift held very still so as not to wake him, and tucked his nose against the medic’s arm to hide his stupid grin.

This time Drift woke to find his systems running a little faster than normal, a fuzzy, tingling warmth already running through his lines. He curled into Ratchet’s arm a little - plating brushed his glossa and oh, right. It had been a while since he’d last wound up _chewing_ on Ratchet’s knuckles and woken him up, but apparently this time around Ratchet was deeper in his recharge and didn’t even twitch. Drift shifted his denta, remembering through his half-asleep fog to be gentle, _gentle,_ and let out a muffled little moan - Ratchet’s first two fingers were curled one behind the other in his mouth and were slick and warm from Drift’s frame heat, Ratchet’s thumb pressed along the line of Drift’s nose in a way that would have been funny if he hadn’t been so-

He tilted his helm, setting his denta gently, _gently_ against the first joint of Ratchet’s finger - the one lying quietly on his glossa - rocking it ever so carefully between the sharp jagged points. Ratchet’s other fingertip rubbed along the line of his lower denta with the movement and it wasn’t anywhere near enough pressure, but his mouth was full of the taste of medbays and safety and Ratchet’s plating was so smooth against the unthinking rasp of his glossa...

Drift pushed hot air out hard through his vents, barely awake and attention fixed on the intense feedback through his mouth. Ratchet was lying half on top of him - they must have shifted in the night - and it wasn’t horrifying, it didn’t feel _bad,_ having Ratchet all around him and the clean taste of Ratchet’s plating doing weird things to his insides as his plating tingled and his mouth throbbed. He wriggled again, felt Ratchet exvent a gentle heat over his finial as the medic’s fans slowly started to spin to help deal with the warmth radiating from Drift’s own frame, felt Ratchet’s fingers twitch against his plating-

Against the plating between his thighs, where Ratchet’s arm was pinned under Drift’s frame and where the medic’s longer reach had left his hand.

Drift stilled, some of the recharge haze leaving his processor. Ratchet shifted, muttered something Drift couldn’t parse, wrapped his hand more firmly around the sharp front edge of Drift’s pelvic plating and downshifted back into recharge.

If he wasn’t so - so tingly and desperate to move, it would almost be _funny._ Ratchet’s strong arms around him and the heat trapped between their frames made Drift want to squirm, and he pushed his cheek harder against Ratchet’s hand and rubbed his cheek against the dips and rises of Ratchet’s palm to try and ease the prickles without waking the medic. His array felt _weird,_ loose and wet like he hadn’t dried off enough after a long oil bath, and Ratchet’s hand there made him want to squeeze his thighs together to keep it where it was.

What the frag was _wrong_ with him?

Just as an edge of panic was starting to fight its way to the front of Drift’s processor, Ratchet drew in a long invent and arched his back a little, stretching as he woke like always. His arms tightened around Drift’s frame when he was done, like always, and despite the _not sure if want!_ Drift’s aft bucked against Ratchet’s plating, and he set his denta against Ratchet’s fingers as if to ground himself against feeling so strange.

“...mmnh?” Wow, Ratchet must really have been out of it, Drift thought wildly, the edges of some strange emotion fluttering against his innards. Ratchet’s fingers quirked in his mouth and Drift let out a huff of sound, more than he could stifle, and Ratchet drew him close as though he was going to make some teasing comment. Drift _felt_ when Ratchet realised just where his other hand was, the blocky frame blanketing him going taut as strung wire.

“Uh.” 

“Yeah,” Drift managed, just shy of a moan through the fingers in his mouth. Ratchet’s hand twitched again, then the one trapped under Drift’s belly tensed as though to move. “-don’t,” he blurted, and for _why_ he had no idea other than that the hint of cooler air against his plating was enough to sting. Ratchet hesitated, but didn’t pull away.

“You sure?” he said quietly, sounding entirely awake all at once, all serious and a little strangled with static. Drift wasn’t sure _what_ the frag he was doing, but his frame was all but vibrating and he was so - he was so close - He closed his mouth around Ratchet’s fingertips, rubbing his glossa against smooth plating, and heard Ratchet chuff surprise through his vents. “Guessing - that’s a yes,” Ratchet managed, and Drift heard more than felt Ratchet tremble against his back. “Drift- really not sure I won’t go over this time-”

Drift pinged him a nonverbal _affirmative_ and hummed, vents working harder, and groaned as Ratchet’s fingers curled in his mouth and rubbed almost _almost_ as hard as he liked it over the base of his denta, right where they were set into his upper jaw. He shook, thighs clamping around Ratchet’s hand and the wet throb under his panels, fingers digging into the berth.

Overload took him by surprise - not torn from his frame out of friction and self-defence, but a breathless flutter at the edge of his awareness before he buried his face against Ratchet’s palm and suckled hard on Ratchet’s fingers, sparks dancing over his frame and his array throbbing as pleasure rolled from his mouth through his processor and down. Ratchet groaned, muffled by his own arm, and Drift’s hips jolted without his say-so as Ratchet’s fingers clutched tighter. He could smell ozone and sparks of charge, which was more familiar by far than the creeping languor loosening up his joints. It didn’t _hurt._ That - that was just about the weirdest part of whatever the slag was going on with this cycle.

Ratchet was shaking, and Drift wasn’t _that_ stupid - he knew the other mech hadn’t overloaded, and even if nothing else made sense that just wasn’t right. Drift set his denta lightly to Ratchet’s forefinger, felt the medic’s indrawn vent and the way he shivered, and a glowing, spark-pulsing feeling of power had Drift grinning wide as he drew the uneven sharp points over sensitised plating. Ratchet made a noise Drift kind of wanted to hear again, so he nibbled on the tip of Ratchet’s finger as he drew back - not quite, not _quite,_ but as Drift trailed his denta along Ratchet’s finger again he felt the rolling, rising surge and thundering crash of charge tense up Ratchet’s whole frame, and for once felt more than just relief at another mech’s overload. 

Ratchet shuddered all the way through, only going limp after a good few clicks had passed. Drift circled his glossa over the pad of Ratchet’s finger, just because he could, then yelped as Ratchet flickered his fingers pointedly - _tickles!_ \- over Drift’s heated pelvic plating as the bigger mech freed his arm.

_Guess I owed him that one._

They lay quietly for a moment, Drift releasing Ratchet’s fingers in favour of nuzzling into his palm, both of them venting heat. Ratchet rested most of his weight on his free arm, which Drift was dimly grateful for - it was getting pretty hot in there.

“So,” Ratchet said, a little lingering static making the words crackle. “You wanna talk about this?”

_Aaagh, **words.**_ Still, it was - nice. Making sure this was all okay. Checking in.

“That was weird,” Drift offered, and regretted it in an instant as Ratchet curled in on himself a little and his thighs bumped Drift’s aft. “Not - not bad weird, just - I don’t. Do that. Y’know, cycle up and go off like that.”

That got Ratchet’s attention. He could practically feel the medical subroutines spinning up. “Lousy partners, or just a lot of work to get to overload?” Ratchet asked, commendably neutrally, and Drift pulled a face into the medic’s palm.

“Not in the job description,” he said, dry enough to scour plating and bitter with it. “Nothing spins my crank. ...mostly. It’s a bother’n it just hurts.”

The hiss that got was pure Medbay Ratchet, but this time around at least Drift was pretty sure the ire there wasn’t aimed at _him._ “Then they were doing it wrong,” Ratchet said flatly. “I...guess you noticed I replaced a few broken ports and your valve lining after that big rebuild you had. You had a few frayed plug connectors and your valve was mostly scar buildup and shreds...”

“Yeah, I noticed. ...thanks. Guess I didn’t know I was supposed to - do the - lubricating thing.” _...smooth, gutter-trash._

Ratchet was still, too still, and Drift hesitantly reached up a little and touched his fingertips to Ratchet’s, curled under his cheek. “‘S okay,” he offered, and Ratchet made a noise like a bomb going off.

“The frag it is!” he exploded, and Drift snapped the volume down on his audials with a twitch. “ _Nobody_ gets to hurt someone they’re ‘facing like that, the lazy greedy stupid slaggers-!”

Something in Drift’s throat _ached._ “‘S okay,” he said again, linking their fingertips together under his cheek. “Still here. Got me by, right? Now I’m here. ...won’t stop everyone hurting, but we’re working on it. Starting to think we’ll get there.”

Ratchet clearly wasn’t done being angry, but he invented deep and fast and blew it all out again in a rush. He squeezed Drift’s hand, strong digits moving against Drift’s cheek gentle and so fiercely protective that it made Drift’s spark ache all over again.

“We ought to talk about this,” Ratchet said, and Drift groaned a little theatrically as he nursed that bubble of achy joy. “Maybe after a nap, though. That sound okay to you?”

“Yeah,” Drift said, and tugged Ratchet’s arm back around himself, comfort sinking down deep into his struts. “Sounds great.”


	9. Iacon - First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A variety of new first impressions are made - some significantly better than others. Drift has a lot to think about, some of it in the washracks and some of it in the labs. Ratchet approves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we're getting into the home stretch now - warnings this chapter for brief mention of past dub/non-con sex work done to pay the bills, an equally brief mention of modifying cords into spikes (nothing graphic or surgery-ish, more just that it was done as a way to get more income) and a shower scene that's more thoughtful than steamy.

Ratchet and Drift found their own equilibrium as life at the Prime’s Compound settled into a steady rhythm. The engineer from Tarn, Wheeljack, had gone from a curiousity to one of Orion’s eclectic collection of friends to some kind of genial academic wrecking ball, smashing through a millennium's worth of accepted fact to almost single-handedly solve the fuel crisis. Drift was inclined to like him already after being saved from curious sparklings by Wheeljack’s cheerful enthusiasm, but this was something else. 

Ratchet already knew him, as it happened, and their reunion was filled with a lot of back-slapping hugs and injokes from the Academy that flew high over Drift’s head. He stayed a step back until all the hugging was done with, and nodded when Ratchet turned to gesture expansively in his direction.

“‘Jack, this is Drift - wait, didn’t you say you’d met him already?”

“Vosians in the Temple,” Drift confirmed, and held his arm out for the Iaconian wrist-clasp he’d become more-or-less accustomed to. “Doing something amazing here, if it works.”

“Heh, well, that’s the fun part!” Wheeljack took Drift’s smaller hand in his and squeezed happily, seemingly out of sheer good humour rather than any kind of test of strength. One more point in his favour, as far as Drift was concerned. “Here’s hoping me and the engineering department can get some kinda structure set up to take what we’re gonna produce - and hope it’ll work long-distance, too! There’s gonna be a lot of testing before I wanna promise anything.”

“Still the only one actually doing something with the science stuff,” Drift pointed out, and he warmed at the soft look in Ratchet’s optics he received in turn. Wheeljack chuckled, and the brightly-flashing lights at his helm did something that might have been a beam, if Drift was reading him right. It had been a while, what with the sheer amount of time it had taken Wheeljack to get to the aft end of the galaxy and back, but that level of enthusiasm was pretty clear.

“And here’s hoping it works right! In the meantime, though, I got some time on my hands - wanna show me around this fancy private medbay you got, Ratch? I hear you’re rebuilding half of Kaon too!”

“Just the healthcare system,” Ratchet said dryly, but he was already throwing an arm around Wheeljack’s shoulders. “But sure, why not? Drift, you wanna come?”

Drift shook his head, a half smile lingering almost despite himself. He’d let Ratchet have some time with his friend and catch up - and, uh, ‘catch up’, if he wanted. “Got stuff to get done,” he said, and then any hope of staying aloof around Wheeljack ever again failed as Ratchet took his hand and squeezed. Drift’s smile went lopsided and smitten, he could feel it, and he didn’t care; he squeezed back, then gave the two a brief wave as Ratchet towed Wheeljack into the Prime’s Compound proper, curling his fingers gently into his palm to hold on to the lingering sense of Ratchet’s hand in his.

*

They’d worked out a system between them, around the same kind of time they’d first talked about getting serious and consent and sharing a berth and stuff. Ratchet had more of a ‘facing drive than Drift by a megamile, for all that his work with the Prime kept him busy and tired more than it had as a medical student; Drift was more than happy with snuggling in the berth, holding hands and Ratchet petting his frame as they dozed. He’d yet to find anything he liked more than occasionally, uh, giving Ratchet’s fingers a polish with his glossa and Ratchet holding onto him as one or both of them overloaded, but that didn’t mean he wanted Ratchet frustrated and unhappy. What he did insist on was Ratchet at least pinging him when the medic was heading off to meet a friend-with-benefits or three, and a location marker that Drift could check. Ratchet had reset his optics at that, but the resulting conversation - halting, painfully uncomfortable, and resulting in Ratchet hugging Drift tight like a comfort toy after - had gone into far more of the dangers of the twilit Dead End and of ‘facing for credits than Drift thought Ratchet had ever considered. 

“Know you trust ‘em,” Drift had muttered, and Ratchet had squeezed him fiercely, “But somebody’s got to know where you are an’ who with. Just in case.”

This wasn’t the Dead End, he knew that - he _knew_ that - but it was a smart practise for anyone high up in the Prime and Lord Protector’s favour to get into, and it made the images of finding _bits_ of Ratchet in a chop-shop somewhere less...vivid. That and if there was an emergency then Drift could ping Ratchet in a click, and that helped Ratchet relax too. Plus sometimes Ratchet commed him when so-and-so was being an aft, or such-and-such had hit a sore point with some dirty talk that had gone wide of the mark. It did silly things to Drift’s internals when Ratchet called _him_ first for comfort, even as he bit down on the urge to go and bounce the offender’s helm off the wall a few times. Once Drift had come running at an emergency ping, only to find Ratchet cuffed to the berth and swearing a blue streak as his current very flustered partner apologised for losing the keys - without doing something useful about it, either, and Ratchet had muttered something about not trying that with xir again.

It also meant that occasionally Ratchet involuntarily commed Drift a burst of garbled static when he overloaded, which both made him snicker and reassured him that Ratchet was having a good time. 

Drift went through a few rounds on the range on the enforcers’ training floor, idly considered heading further down and trying to beat his best score on the drift circuit of the racetracks, then glanced down at himself. A few smudges, a bit of purple spatter from the blanks he’d used...good enough excuse to hit the washracks in his quarters for a while.

Moving through the halls wasn’t as much hassle as it had been, at least. He still got looks, but they were the kind he could ward off with a flat look and a meaningful resettling of his plating. That was one more good thing to add to the list after Ratchet had rebuilt him, right after being able to get under said plating properly and being _clean_ the way he hadn’t quite been able to with his old armour. There was a kind of confidence in being small, dangerous and right where he was supposed to be, and Drift headed back to the Prime’s Compound with a steady tread.

_No more junk in front of my door. That’s good._

He hadn’t seen Wing in a while, and the whispers had died down. Mech hadn’t got into Drift’s ports, maybe that was why - that and he’d heard Wing had been reassigned. Gossip was he’d gone to Uraya with Dai Atlas, but Drift didn’t care enough to check, so long as the walking annoyance wasn’t _here._

Drift shook his head, firmly shoving any and all thoughts of grabbing hands out of his processor. He locked the door behind himself, slid the barely-used chair in front of the door to trip up anyone who tried fritzing the lock, and headed to the washracks with his usual security measures setting his processor at ease. As he’d got a little more used to staying in one place he’d picked up a few different kinds of cleanser, a mesh rag and a shammy to go with his single container of wax, and after spending a click or three fiddling with the washrack settings to get a scalding-hot, all-directions torrent going, Drift amused himself by sniffing at the different cleansers before he picked one out. Cleaning up been world-changing enough in Uraya, and processor-blowing in Ratchet’s fizzy-gunk bath during his rebuild, but choosing your cleansers by _smell_ had struck him as both obscenely indulgent and hilarious at the same time.

_Denying yourself every single thing won’t save the world,_ Megatron’s voice echoed from his memory banks, and Drift tapped a thumb against his denta before picking out a big squeezy bottle of something that foamed like nobody’s business and smelt faintly of disinfectant. Okay, so he’d picked it out from peering at Ratchet’s medbay supply lists and finding one with the same design on the packaging, but it was still fancy by his standards, and comforting besides. Drift plucked out his fistful of mesh scraps and poured a generous measure of cleanser onto it before locking the ‘rack door in turn and retreating into the pounding spray.

Taking his time in a private ‘rack was still unimaginable luxury, even after multiple uses of the thing, and Drift had a routine all worked out. Hands first, then face, then scrubbing all over his helm front to back as first main order of business. Anyone who tried jumping him in the washrack would expect him to be half-deaf and at a sensor-disadvantage; frag _that._ Working the mesh over his finials felt good, though, he had to admit.

After that, Drift worked down his frame a section at a time, letting his plating flare up and tilting this way and that to get at everything that might pick up dust and dirt as he moved. Scrubbing around his neck was satisfying in a weird kind of way, rolling his helm around and letting the spray blast under his chin and between his shoulders. His back was harder to reach, but getting used to the way he moved after Ratchet’s rebuild had really thrown into relief how much more flexible he was now - and anyway, he could twist the mesh out into a long coil and scrub _that_ over and under the edges of anything he couldn’t reach. The angled jets and the heat took care of what bits of his shoulders were too awkward to work around, and Drift lathered down his arms in a haze of scalding steam and contentment. 

Drawing bubbly circles down his front made him think of Ratchet, and the way the medic would stroke and knead over his belly as they curled up together. Drift’s mouth snuck close to that daffy smile again and he didn’t even try to stop it. A hint of the fizzing, tingling eagerness he always felt when Ratchet was good to him crept through his lines, muted somewhat under the pounding of the washrack jets, and Drift let out a soft little sigh of steam as he curled his fingers in the mesh against his plating, pretending for a moment they were Ratchet’s.

The tingling warmth pooled under his hand. Lower, something twitched under his plating.

Drift didn’t move for long, long moments, then slowly and carefully lowered his hand and released the catches on his panel. Maybe he should have asked Ratchet to switch him over to autonomics, but if he did that he’d never get the stupid thing open if he ever needed to or, worse, it could open when he didn’t want it to and-

Pulling in a deep invent heavy with steam, Drift fastidiously scrubbed down both sides of the panel and set it down on the bench that ran along one wall of the washrack. That done, he let himself look down.

His spike wasn’t anything special. Modded, sure, just enough to class as a _spike_ rather than a _cord,_ but that was just a technicality. He’d gritted his jaw and jacked in a booster as a Dead End mountie pulled his sensitivity way down and added some biolights; she’d wanted a ride as payment, and Drift hadn’t had the credits - or the coherency, when she was done - to say no. Gasket had kept an optic on things just to make sure Drift didn’t end up in a parts bin, for all he’d been in pretty bad shape himself by then and was the mountie’s next customer, and they got a few more credits off each mark stupid enough to want something fancier in their buymechs. It had helped, for a while - staved off Gask’s own frame troubles until that hadn’t mattered anymore.

Drift hadn’t thought about his spike for - forever, it seemed like, not since he’d started really believing the Kaon mechs would take a no and not force it. Now, though, it had pressurised just enough to notice, and Drift huffed at himself. He’d scrubbed over the housing enough times before and nothing had happened, slag it all.

His thoughts briefly went back to Ratchet, to strong fingers kneading against his more flexible plating, and a little tingle of _interest_ ran from his tanks to his spike. Drift watch it extend further as though he’d never seen it before, and gingerly touched a fingertip to the side of it, just underneath one of the gleaming little biolights. It gave a little, nudging to one side at his touch and already warming to the same scalding heat as the rest of his plating, and Drift fought off the urge to giggle hysterically at his spike half pressurised and waving from side to side. _These things always look so fraggin’ stupid!_

_...wonder if Ratchet’s looks just as weird._

_Bet Ratchet could make a spike look pretty. ...nah. Not pretty - functional. His’d be all solid and no fuss, practical, ‘n - maybe red..._

His fingers curled around his spike, almost of their own accord. It didn’t feel like much, the temperature contrast between his hand and his spike fading away as it heated up under the spray of the washracks, but it was - kind of comforting to hold, and Drift wasn’t sure what to make of it. He ran his thumb over the head of his spike, watching the runnels of cleanser twist and rush over his dark grey hand and the spike’s pale grey microplates. 

It didn’t feel...bad. Wasn’t really spinning his crank, but wasn’t making him want to void his tanks, either. It was just - there, like wrapping one hand around the other, or holding onto his pedes when he sat cross-legged. He squeezed experimentally, stroking slowly up until he ran out of spike and it popped free, swaying slightly. If it was leaking he couldn’t tell, and that was the part he’d hated most about spike overloads, his own or other people’s - all that fraggin’ mess that got absolutely everywhere.

_Wonder if Ratchet could take it off for me,_ he thought idly, kneading at the mesh ball in his other hand. _Not even sure it works right, if it don’t do anything for me even on my own. He’s already fixed up my valve._

...

Thoughtfully, Drift left his spike alone and reached down, fingers curling. The last time he’d touched his valve he’d been trying to find a half-healed tear, and hadn’t that been a bad idea - this time he huffed to himself and shuffled his pedes further apart, then when that didn’t work he scooted back to perch his aft on the edge of the washracks’ bench. The spray buffeted his face and blurred his optics, but he didn’t need to see to hitch up his hips and stretch a hand down again.

The tiny platelets of metalmesh under his panel got scrubbed every time he went into the washracks, same as everything else. This time Drift dipped a shoulder and reached around his spike, between his legs, and tentatively rested his fingertips against the tightly-pleated rubber rim of his valve. It was hot, sure, reacting to the heat of the spray along with the rest of him, but - he rubbed ever so slightly, flinchingly - there was a tiny bit of slickness there that was thicker and more stubborn than the cleanser. That was him. That was valve lube or he was a glitchmouse.

“Frag me,” Drift murmured, then promptly pulled a face at himself. _Ratchet does good work. And I’ve got myself all lubed before, when..._

He touched his mouth with his free hand, deliberately, the soaked mesh ball squishing against his chin and sending more cleanser and more bubbles spiralling down his throat and into his lap. Drift watched, distracted, following the path of the foam trail down his plating and bubble up around his spike, spill over his hand, tickle at his valve. The rubber pleats twitched under his fingertips; a dim echo of sensation coiled up his spike.

Drift exvented slowly, setting his denta against the pad of his thumb as he considered.

“Aw, what the Pit,” he muttered to himself, and pushed with a testing sort of pressure against the ring of his valve. It clamped tight, his frame remembering pain and damage, then as Drift cycled his vents again and - with a flash of unconscious inspiration - buried his nose in the mesh ball to soak in the scent of _hospital, safe now_ , it relaxed one micron at a time.

Drift’s finger slid slowly, carefully inside himself, and it was - weird, sure, this whole thing was weird, but it didn’t _hurt._ Very, very carefully, he curled his finger and deliberately pressed against the wall of his valve, and it gave gracefully under the touch with no pain at all. Drift shivered, a faint curl of pleasure stroking through his frame under the heat of the washracks. _Is that what it’s supposed to feel like?_

_Is it supposed to feel - okay?_

A shaky invent filled his receptors with the fading smell of disinfectant and the stronger, hotter one of washrack cleanser. One more and Drift set the mesh ball down on the bench, curling his hand around his spike and running his thumb in a considering sort of way over one of the biolights winking up at him. 

_Guess now’s as good a time as any to find out,_ he reasoned, and set about finding all those sensors in his valve lining that Ratchet had repaired.

*

Bringing in more scientists from Tarn had been in the plan from the beginning, and Drift had already got his team set up and ready to factor in watches on the labs. Megatron was busy getting Kaon set up with the manufacturing side with the twins as his dedicated this-and-nothing-else guards, and everyone there knew this was the one big push that would make or break them. By throwing everything Kaon had into this idea of Wheeljack’s, they were setting themselves up for either one massive failure or a careful influx of fuel that would maybe, _maybe_ cover Kaon’s needs before they expanded to the rest of the planet. Kaon knew all about do-or-die last stands, but it seemed like Iacon hadn’t got the flimsy - or just didn’t want to acknowledge it, hence why Megatron had gone off with the twins and Drift’s team was focussing their efforts on protecting both Orion and the scientists he’d pretty thoroughly wrapped around his digits, fending off protesting Senators and potential assassins alike. Fun.

Most of the scientists had piled in together according to their specialty, with Wheeljack turning the engineering core into a powerhouse that Drift didn’t want to get too close to, just in case he wound up welded to the - whatever it was they were making that shift. He set Gladius to be the voice of reason there, kept Satine, Velvet and Silk on a rotating schedule to keep up with Orion and his diplomattery, and allocated everyone else to keeping track of the lab chaos. Drift wasn’t about to let someone sneak in under the pretense of being either a scientist or a supplier, and walked the labs himself checking in through his duty shifts.

It was kind of interesting watching them work, in all honesty. Drift had seen Ratchet on medbay duty before, admired his steady hands and how he always figured out what to do from the tiniest little clues, and some of the science stuff was a lot like that. Ratchet generally had a better sense of what was going on around him, though, which Drift approved of and thus far had found to be pretty lacking with the science types. He’d checked in with his security team already that cycle and settled into the biggest lab - Wheeljack’s - to get a feel of the place when all the science mechs were working and nothing was going wrong, and he’d been standing in the same general sort of area for about a quarter of that shift when one of the scientists shifted, swung their scope from side to side, and transformed back into root mode, muttering away to themselves as they moved towards a bank of storage tubes.

“Copper indium gallium diselenide, sulfur hexafluoride, cadmium- oh!”

“Hey there,” Drift said dryly, and heard Gladius do a pretty good job of stifling a snicker. The mech startled, scrambled back a step, then promptly started giving off enough heat that Drift could feel it on his plating - which wasn’t hard, considering the mech had pretty much run into him.

“I’m terribly sorry, I had no idea you were- er. My apologies! I was just going to- fetch some - the supply cabinet, yes. Do excuse me, I had no idea someone was there...”

Drift quirked a grin at him, didn’t bother hiding it. Okay, that was kind of funny. Mech might be bigger than he was, but it wasn’t like he’d done it intentionally, and all the flustering and blushing just made him come across as all the more harmless. “Been here a while,” he pointed out - and maybe that _was_ a little mean, but come on. “Not a problem. Perceptor, right?” 

He’d made a point of making sure his team knew the names, faces and forms of everyone working in the labs, and this one was supposed to be some kinda super-scientist helping Wheeljack with all the chemical side of making the stellar panels; the mech still perked up like he was delighted to be noticed, which admittedly earned him another point towards Drift’s good opinion. He didn’t like arrogance. “Why yes! I - er, I’m so sorry, I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

_Probably not, if he’s this oblivious. ...eh. Hyper-focussed, maybe, that’s kinder._ “Drift. Megatron’s Second.” Drift gestured vaguely and stepped to the side, waving Perceptor on to the storage unit he’d originally been aiming for. “I’ll be around, or comm security if you need me. Gladius’s this lab’s usual guard.”

Perceptor looked over almost as though he really hadn’t noticed anything outside of his work for the past thousand years or so, but he lit up and beamed happily as Gladius raised a hand. “Ah! Yes, we have been introduced - well, it is a pleasure to meet you, Drift, truly.”

_...yeah, okay, that’s kinda cute._ “Yeah. You too.” Drift waited for a moment, but either Perceptor was having trouble with words or he really wanted to get back to...whatever it was he’d been doing, fidgeting with his fingers and shuffling a little on the spot, and Drift headed to the door with a nod to him and Gladius both. _Not too bad, I guess. Least he’s polite._

*

After that, Drift took to kind of checking up on Perceptor when he ran his checks on the labs. His team was more than competent and he made sure they knew he was proud of them, emulating Megatron whenever he struggled for words or a good way to urge them on, but he had to admit to a bit of favouritism in how he set their protection details, here and there.

“That Tarnish medic they brought in is a total chromed-up gashole,” he said bluntly, and Ratchet almost ventilated his energon laughing.

“What brought that on?” he asked, when he could speak clearly again; Drift huffed through every vent he had, and Ratchet snickered at his expression.

“He’s a knotted-up cord with a clogged-up sense of superiority,” Drift retorted, and good thing the Primal Compound’s tiny crystal garden was empty at this time of the off-shift with how hard Ratchet was laughing. “He flutters around like his lube don’t stink ‘n he was mean to Percy.”

Ratchet’s optic ridges raised, connectors visibly snicking into place behind his optics. “Sounds kind of familiar, actually. Don’t suppose he was a jet? More blue than anything, little peekaboo wings?” Drift nodded, his mouth full of energon, and Ratchet sighed. “Thought so. We were in the Academy together, if he’s the guy I think he is - Pharma?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Mrph. Fantastic medic - don’t pull that face, I’m being objective here - fantastic medic, but he could be a real arrogant so-and-so. Worse berthside manner than mine, even. We were frag buddies for a while, then it went kind of sour when I got promoted faster than he did at Iacon General. He went off to Tarn to prove himself and we lost touch.”

Drift was already bristling, picking up on the tiny edge of hurt and the resignation in Ratchet’s field; the other mech sighed and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, well, that was a good while ago now. Sometimes things just - don’t work out.”

“If he makes trouble I’ll shoot his shiny aft,” Drift threatened, and Ratchet burst into startled laughter.

“Eh, I doubt it. He’s only here to write medical reports on the energon quality for the Academy, right? He probably just wants to get in on the prestigious new thing where he can and then go home. He’s a surgeon, not a pharmacist.”

“Mrph.” Drift grumbled his engine, not entirely satisfied - Pharma had sniped at the most ridiculously sweet scientist in the bunch _and_ hurt Ratchet, however long ago it might have been, and Drift wanted him _gone_ \- but he still snuggled up into Ratchet’s side and took another sip of his energon. Ratchet tilted his helm slightly, thoughtful, then gave him a teasing grin just as Drift was about to swallow.

“So,” he said lightly. “‘Percy’?”

*

Perceptor was adorable.

Drift wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept - he’d heard the word often enough during the Praxians’ diplomatic visit, when Orion had gone utterly ga-ga for the Vosian sparklings - but he’d never really figured out what to apply it to when using the word in the privacy of his own helm. Small things, that was a pretty standard one, going by the complaints his minibot team voiced when it was just the Lord Protector’s security team fuelling up together - it was useful to be considered cute and adorable, sure, since people underestimated you, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. Drift had overheard people cooing over Tower Tau Aqua’s created-animals before, as well as the aviary frames they bred, but again there was a crossover with the ‘small’ requirement, since those mechs were usually mooning over the little ones they could pick up and cuddle. ‘Smaller than the person doing the cooing’ tended to vary by frametype, admittedly, but still...

Perceptor was bigger than Drift, one of the smartest and most accomplished and accredited mechs in Tarn _and_ Iacon according to Wheeljack - and he would know, Drift reckoned - and was helping to develop the most efficient way to feed their planet by fiddling with chemicals and bottles of coloured stuff in droppers that would blow up if he did it wrong.

Perceptor _talked to his lab equipment._

Perceptor talked to his lab equipment in the most friendly, cheerful, conversational tone Drift had ever heard, even beating out Orion, and it was so cute he couldn’t _stand_ it. Perceptor chatted away to the chemicals he was using, informing them of what they’d be creating today and what he was doing with them, and it was _so adorable._ Drift might have thought he’d been hit on the head and was walking around with processor trouble, but no - apparently he’d just found his own definition of cute. He’d sidled up to Gladius after a few on-cycles of spending time in the main lab just...boggling, and quietly asked her if this was - y’know - a normal thing that Tarnish mechs did. None of the other scientists seemed to, though they did share the same utter lack of spatial awareness that meant they forgot the guards were in the room, although no small few Drift suspected of deliberately ignoring the non-scientists out of sheer snobbery...

When he asked, Gladius just chuckled like she’d heard the question more than once over the course of her shifts in the main lab. “Aye,” she confirmed, grinning widely. “I must confess, I find it rather endearing. I am not - _entirely_ sure whether he knows he does it, or whether he knows we can hear him, but I do find it a rather sweet thought that he may well and simply not care.”

Yeah. That - that was kind of endearing, and Drift privately thought that might be what appealed to him so much. How could you not like a mech who apologised for tripping over a chair and explained experiments to the burners like he was asking consent? It was adorable, and Drift found himself lingering in the main lab when his shift was over, just to say hi to Perceptor and ask how things were going. Perceptor always lit up like he was delighted to have been asked, and checked in very conscientiously to see how Drift was doing too, which warmed him as well. Plus Perceptor always said hello to Gladius and the other guards, and frankly not enough of the scientists did that either, and yeah he was including Pharma in that remark, frag him anyway. Drift might have gotten just a little bit protective of Perceptor. He was so _nice,_ how could anyone that nice even survive to be the smartest scientist around? Surely that took a while to do... 

So, when Pharma had glided into the labs and made some comment about the insufficient amenities and sneered at Perceptor’s cheery assurance that they were getting along wonderfully, truly, they had everything they needed, Drift had prickled up.

_”Aww, kid,” Ratchet murmured, and tightened his arm around Drift’s shoulders where they sat._

“Adequate,” Pharma intoned, looking down his (long, sharp, beaky) nose at the racks of equipment and half-full supply cabinets. “Barely adequate. Really, Perceptor, you _are_ going down in the world if you think _this_ is ‘wonderful’.”

Perceptor reset his optics, visibly confused and a little hurt along with it. “Not at all. Everyone in the compound’s laboratory section has been most accommodating, and the wait times on a refill of our most commonly-used chemicals are-”

“Yes, yes.” Pharma waved him off, and both Drift and Gladius glared at the mech’s dismissive tone. “Tch. Iacon really is going downhill if _this_ is their big push.”

“...okay, you’re done,” Drift said flatly, his decision made in an instant spark of dislike and heading towards the flier as he spoke. Pharma turned his helm and looked down at him as though Drift were some smudge of grime on the floor, which did nothing to improve Drift’s opinion of the mech.

“And you are-?”

“Clearin’ the lab of non-essential personnel.”

_Back in the present, Ratchet clapped his free hand over his optics and hooted. “Oh frag me, that must’ve just burned him up!”_

Pharma’s wings quivered, the little points snapping up and out as wide as they would go as his optics flared in outrage. “How _dare_ you. I am the lead medic of the Tarnish Enquiry Team, and I will _not_ be intimidated by some jumped-up security guard!”

Drift grinned at him, baring sharp, snaggly denta in a way that was as far as he could get from friendly. “Lucky you. You got the Lord Protector’s Second intimidatin’ you instead.” His grin fell away, and Drift leaned in to lower his voice into something harsh and cold he’d learned from Sunstreaker at his most annoyed. “Now get your shiny aft out of here before I throw you out.”

At his back Gladius shifted, her massive frame taking up even more space as she crossed her arms and flared out her plating, and Pharma bristled like an offended turbofox. “You have no authority to bar me from the labs!” he protested, and Drift took a step even closer to him.

“I ain’t barring you. _Yet_. Now get out an’ find somethin’ useful to do. Shoo.”

Pharma hesitated, almost like he was trying to make a point; Drift lifted his chin, slitting his optics and silently daring him to try anything, and the jet let out a snort before wheeling on his heel and storming from the lab in high dudgeon.

“You haven’t heard the last of this,” Pharma snapped over his shoulder; Drift pinged for the lab doors to slide shut in reply, almost clipping Pharma’s heels on the way out.

“Oh my word,” Perceptor said rather faintly; Drift turned back to him, somewhat disconcerted to find every other lab tech and Tarnish scientist within audial range staring at him in what looked unnervingly like awe.

“Okay, show’s over,” he he managed, and headed back to a rather wobbly-looking Perceptor. The taller mech leaned back against the console he’d been working at, and Drift focussed on him so he didn’t have to see Gladius chivvying the other mechs back to their own consoles. “You okay?”

Perceptor waved a vague hand, dark grey fingers curling against the movement. “Fine, yes. Pharma tends towards being - well, rather brutal in his assessments, but we have more or less gotten used to him. ...I do appreciate the - the rescue, I must say. It was - not expected, and very much appreciated.”

_“ **Awww,** ” Ratchet murmured, and Drift hid his nose in his energon cube until the heat in his face faded somewhat. “Now I really have to meet this guy. He sounds like good people.”_

“Yeah, well. You’re welcome. Nobody talks down to anybody else, Prime’s orders.” Drift hesitated, but - aw, slag it. “He gets like that again, let me know, I’ll take it to the right people.”

Perceptor’s optics shone as he smiled, and right then Drift really did feel like he’d done something worth praising. “Thank you.”

*

Pharma never did come back into the main lab when Drift was working, but he spread the word to the rest of his security team to watch for any kind of needling or sidelong undermining anyway. From _anyone_. What with the increasing levels of sabotage cropping up in Kaon’s efforts to rework the mines into manufacturing plants - Drift’s hands tightened into fists, wishing more than anything that he could be in two places at once - any hint of running down the scientists or their work was going to get nipped out right at the start. This was too important for interdepartmental politics or bad feeling getting in the way of their larger goal.

He still stopped in to talk to Perceptor, sometimes just to take a break from the looming pressure outside of the labs. Inside, at least, there was purpose and activity and a respite from the idiots trying to derail what they were working towards, and Perceptor was always glad to see him. Wheeljack too, but he was even busier than Drift was and in Kaon more often than he wasn’t, and very obviously revelling in his work - Perceptor, though, he always looked up whenever he was more aware of his surroundings than usual, and lit up when Drift was in his line of sight. It was - kind of nice.

It hadn’t been too long after the set-to with Pharma that Perceptor - “Really, you can call me Percy if you wish. Wheeljack always has, and I rather like it.” - asked to talk when he was off-duty. Drift hadn’t really realised that the scientists ever went off-duty, given that the Tarnish ones stayed in the quarters built just off from the labs and Wheeljack never really left the labs anyway. Percy smiled, something almost nervous in the way he shifted his weight and his scope mount whirred ever so slightly in and out of focus; it was hard not to give in and just call him _adorable_ out loud, but Drift kept his processor on task as best he could and just gave Perceptor a nod. “What’s the problem?”

“Oh - oh, no, no problem. Well, not as such,” Percy hurried out in a rush, and Drift was _so_ hard-pressed not to smile. “No, I merely - well. I understand that of course you must have so many conversations like this that it must all be rather routine for you, but I was rather hoping that you would be amenable to hearing out my proposal.”

It took Drift a click or two to cut through the verbiage to find the shape of what Percy was asking, but when he had, he nodded again - slightly puzzled this time. “Sure, ask away.”

Percy _beamed_ at him, and the sheer happy warmth of it had Drift grinning crookedly in return. _He’s so slaggin’ cute!_

“Excellent! ...well. I hope I’m not overstepping, but I have rather hoped that I could consider us - acquaintances, friends if that is not too bold for how short a time I’ve been in Iacon, and I had hoped that perhaps you might be free to interface when off-duty sometime? I do understand that you must have many calls on your time; you are impossibly attractive and your frame is a beautiful expression of aerodynamics in function-”

“Wuh,” Drift said faintly, and rebooted his audials. “What?”

“...I said that you are very handsome and I would very much like to interface, if you wanted to,” Perceptor said, a little more slowly and his optics shading into hesitance. “Of course you must have many eager partners coming first in your schedule, I certainly wouldn’t wish to presume, but - I thought it would be nice, if you would like to.”

Drift rebooted his audials again. _Nice? ...handsome?_

There was something about Perceptor’s tone that held off any suspicion that this was a prank, and the way the taller mech shifted on his pedes was - worried, rather than about to try and lunge for him, and _a beautiful expression of aerodynamics_ didn’t sound a lot like _sparking gutters shareware_ or even _that one will do, bring him over_.

...but.

“Someone saying I’m an easy frag target?” he asked, optics narrowing; he’d been fully expecting Perceptor to sputter, but the confused dismay in the mech’s expressive face put paid to any thoughts of smirking whispers and getting jumped in a side-street.

“Who- well, I - no-one, that is I just assumed that - so many mechs here talk about your being so well-built, I thought you must be able to ask for any interface partner you wanted and have plenty of willing volunteers.” He gave Drift a helpless sort of look, long fingers clasping together against his chestplate as if something under the glass pained him. “I’m terribly sorry. Offending you even slightly was the furthest thing from my mind.”

It seemed like all Drift could do was stand there like a drone, staring more through Percy than at him as clipped bits of memory files rattled around his processor. Wing, whispers in the halls, racer frames openly staring at him from across the training floor. They thought he was _hot? That’s_ what it had all been about?

...he desperately wished Ratchet was here. Or that he could hide under his berth.

“I’m so sorry,” Perceptor was saying through the fog, sounding - kind of upset. “I never meant to make this awkward, my intentions were exactly the opposite - you have been such good company, and I had thought that - well - that Iacon would be similar to Tarn in term of casual interfacing, Wheeljack assured me of as much, but if I have overstepped-”

“No, it - look, it ain’t you, just I don’t even do that with _Ratchet_.”

Perceptor blinked. “Ratchet? The Prime’s medic?”

“Yeah, we’re - we’re a thing.” Despite his own confusion, Drift felt the same silly fizz run through his wires at the words, a joy and disbelief all at once at being so _lucky_ that never really went away. Perceptor’s optics softened, and Drift probably didn’t want to know what his face had just done in public. Then the scientist’s optics lit in some sudden realisation, his entire frame seeming to ping upright with it.

“Oh! Oh, that does make more sense. He mentioned needing to pass on his location, but I didn’t quite understand why at first...”

Drift squinted, then relaxed somewhat in turn as the rather opaque comment made more sense. He _had_ been talking about Percy quite a bit, and it wouldn’t surprise him if Wheeljack had introduced the two or something even if Drift hadn’t mentioned Ratchet to Perceptor yet. “You two made some arrangements?” he asked, and Percy’s plating heated a degree or two and he _wiggled,_ how fraggin’ cute was that?

“Well - we met, briefly, earlier. Wheeljack mentioned him in conversation, and he _is_ rather famous, even in Tarn. They manufacture quite a bit of medical equipment there, you know, and there was talk when so much of it was going fresh to Kaon.”

Drift puffed up proudly - good, people ought to know how amazing Ratchet was! - and watched as Percy trailed off into that gears-turning expression, the one that usually led him into talking to the lab equipment.

“I wonder,” Perceptor murmured, one expressive hand curling around his chin as his gaze went far away. “Would you both perhaps be open to an alternative line of enquiry?”

Drift tilted his head - cute and kind of unusual Percy might be, but he’d not given Drift any reason to be worried so far, just the opposite. Besides, if Drift himself had only ever heard about Ratchet’s party ambulance reputation when the medic had asked him out, he wouldn’t be snuggling Ratchet through his off-shifts on the regular.

“I’m listening,” he said, and opened up a commline to Ratchet.


	10. Iacon - the Medbay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Perceptor makes a very solid case, Ratchet supports his theories, and Drift might - just might - be convinced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're into the final section of the fic - there's an epilogue coming up, which I'm going to post tonight as work has been kicking my arse the past few weeks and I want to get something fun that makes me happy out there. I hope this makes you guys happy too. <3 This chapter has: loving, playful Dom/sub 'facing, teasing, overload denial via toys, praise kink, light bondage, sticky AND plug-and-play components, and SCIENCE!

“Now then,” Perceptor said softly. “Your hands, please.”

Drift, perched rather awkwardly on the edge of the spare medbay berth, felt much less calm about Ratchet reaching up to have his hands cuffed than Ratchet himself clearly did. They had talked - _slag_ but they had talked, Drift’s audials had been on the verge of burnout and his processor had felt like it was smoking, and he’d only agreed to stay on the edges as Ratchet and Perceptor did...what they did - and Drift knew, he _knew_ that this was the kind of stuff Ratchet liked. He’d seen it before, with the nervous loser-of-keys he’d had to rescue Ratchet from a while back, but this was _different._ This wasn’t coming in after the fact, rescuing Ratchet when he was already tethered to the berth and cranky or feeling the relaxation in Ratchet’s frame when he came back to their berth; this was sitting still and watching as Ratchet’s wrists were cuffed to the berth by someone Drift was - starting to admit he trusted.

That Percy fussed - calmly, talking over what he was doing in a way that reminded Drift of the labs and was perversely reassuring, but it was still fussing - did actually help. The locks snicked shut, and Perceptor ran a finger around the inside of the cuffs and tested the foam padding to make sure there weren’t any pinches or snags. Drift realised he was leaning over far enough that his balance wasn’t what it should be in case he had to jump up in a hurry, but sitting back was _hard_ when he was this tense.

“There,” Perceptor said, his tone rich with satisfaction and something that Drift hadn’t heard from him before. “How does that feel, dear? Are you comfortable?”

“Be a lot more comfortable if you’d get down here,” Ratchet shot back, and Drift hid a snicker. That was a gleeful Ratchet all right, and the fighting grin the medic flashed up at Perceptor made Drift relax a little on the edge of the spare berth. Taking advantage of the fact that the small, private medbay attached to the Prime’s Compound was Ratchet’s sole domain helped. Ratchet had backed up his intakes into a coughing fit when Drift suggested-come-insisted they do this there, both for the extra space and so that if anything went wrong- well, Ratchet _was_ a medic, and his clinic was always well-supplied. The hot little flicker of interest in Perceptor’s optics had been Drift’s first clue that things were about to get interesting, and he hadn’t been wrong - Ratchet was entirely at home with the idea of having his arms cuffed over his head, even in his own medbay, and Drift had a faint, creeping inkling that doing this in the medbay might even be cranking Ratchet’s handle. It certainly seemed to be doing something for Percy if his field was anything to go by, and there hadn’t been even a token protest about maybe not doing this in a medbay from either one of them. Maybe it was because it helped Drift feel safe, but...he couldn’t quite let that idea settle, not yet. Even if it came from Ratchet.

On the berth opposite him Ratchet arched his back, powerful legs pushing his heels into the padding, and Drift still tensed when Ratchet’s port- and plug-hatches flickered open in a blatant come-hither. Even knowing he was right there to stop anything from going wrong, even trusting Perceptor as far as he did, none of it did anything against the jerky memory of _pain_ making him want to slap his hands over Ratchet’s hatches and hide the delicate components from sight and touch both. Ratchet wiggled his hips at Percy, still with that wicked grin, and actually laughed when Perceptor’s palm smacked lightly against his thigh.

“Now, dear, none of that. If you keep actively trying to provoke me, I shall take that as bad behaviour.”

“You can take it any way you like, gorgeous,” Ratchet purred with an appreciative, slitted-optics look up and down Percy’s frame, and Drift almost fell off the medbay berth. Ratchet’s voice could rain down pitfire on the foolhardy and order the dying to hold on one click longer, and Drift would follow Ratchet’s voice as he would Megatron’s any shift of the cycle, but this - this was the first time Ratchet’s voice had turned his insides liquid without any warning. A bit of the recharge-rough comfort in the thrum of his engine and just a bit of warning, that Ratchet wouldn’t just roll over on command, merging the familiar and the new and sending a tiny prickle of static crackling down Drift’s back. “Maybe I _want_ to be a pain in the aft.”

“In that case, I should have to discourage such flagrant misbehaviour. I wouldn’t want to give Drift the impression that such things were customary.”

Ratchet snickered, and Perceptor’s mouth flickered towards a smile before he stifled the reflex. Drift blinked. _Huh?_

“Yeah, but you’re forgetting, he _knows_ me,” Ratchet drawled, and Perceptor chuckled out loud.

_Is this what it’s supposed to be like? Are you supposed to have fun?_

“Be that as it may,” Perceptor said, and Drift hauled his processor back to business, “I feel I really must make a point now.”

“Any time you like,” Ratchet grinned, and his engine rumbled louder as Perceptor leaned over the berth, hot and eager. Perceptor’s fingertips trailed up Ratchet’s inner thigh, dark grey against pearly white and his touch light enough to make Ratchet shiver, skipping the panel seams and circling over Ratchet’s hip - and stalling out there, to Ratchet’s audible frustration.

“Open up,” Perceptor said sweetly, getting in before Ratchet could complain about him teasing. Ratchet’s panel snapped open in an instant, baring his array, and Drift was torn between scrunching down and looking away, and...maybe seeing if his guesses were right about Ratchet’s equipment. He was allowed to do that, right?

“About fraggin’ time- HEY!”

Something went _snick._ “Language,” Perceptor said sternly, and Drift stared with wide optics as Ratchet swore loudly and emphatically. It looked like he wouldn’t get chance to sneak a look at Ratchet’s spike just yet - a gently conical metal band stood out stark against Ratchet’s bright red pelvic armour, a pale grey ring magnetised to Ratchet’s array and clearly keeping Ratchet’s spike from extending any further than the tip of the head, just peeking out past the band. 

_Red. Called it._

“That, uh, that ain’t gonna do any damage, is it?” he asked, just to be sure, and Perceptor turned a bright smile on him like this was just another day in the labs.

“Oh, no, not at all! In fact - here, why don’t I show you. Ratchet can make up for his impatience by acting as our test unit!”

Drift glanced up to Ratchet’s face, and - strangled swearing aside, Ratchet’s optics were a hot electric blue, his engine revving in sharp little jerks of sound. It didn’t sound like he was hurting, and his field was practically shedding sparks; Drift felt another delicate shiver of sensation run down his own back, and slid down from the medberth to stand at Percy’s side. Percy beamed at him again, and that flicker of warmth through Drift’s lines grew into a smile right back up at the taller mech.

“I do so enjoy having a lab assistant,” Perceptor said just a little dazedly, staring at Drift’s face, and Ratchet let out another strangled noise. “Well - shall we?” He ran a hand over Ratchet’s hip, his palm flat against red plating, and Ratchet bucked under even that casual touch.

“Fraggit, Percy-!”

“Now, now, good test units don’t swear,” Percy chided, and a snort escaped Drift’s vocaliser before he could rein it back in - Perceptor sounded exactly like he was scolding a misbehaving bit of equipment in the labs. “Let me see - ah, here we are. Now then, this is a standard inhibitor ring, designed for any mid-range cord or lightly modded spike. Particularly unusual mods may make its use unwise, or unsafe depending on the modification in question and its configuration, but in this case from our little talk before starting we can determine that Ratchet’s own modifications will present no issues. The ring will inhibit the pressurisation of his spike, as you can see here, and at the same time direct all sensory information through the available receptors - that is, the sensors at the head of the spike which are made active by exposure. Which means...”

Perceptor traced a delicate fingertip over Ratchet’s hip, up over the plain metal ring, and circled around the bright red tip of Ratchet’s spike. The reaction was immediate, Ratchet’s hips jerking into the air to follow Perceptor’s touch as it withdrew. “Every sensor available to touch has the impact of many times its usual capacity, thanks to those embedded in the rest of the spike being currently unavailable.”

“Percy, you _aft,_ ” Ratchet roared, and Drift could hear the strain in his voice and the faint clatter of his vents. “Quit teasing!”

“We are having a teaching moment, Ratchet,” Perceptor scolded again, and Drift’s own fans started to swoop. “Am I going to need a spreader bar and a gag?”

Ratchet’s engine lurched up a gear.

“...hmm. Duly noted.” Perceptor tapped his chin thoughtfully, then smiled down at Drift again. “Do you have any questions? I could demonstrate again, if you wish.”

Drift’s mouth was dry, his vocaliser prickly with static, and he wished he knew where the swirl of electric bubbles through his lines had come from. If he’d known how good it could be, watching someone touch Ratchet gently without needling him, without _hurting_ him, with Ratchet confident and snarking right back...

...no. Not with any of Ratchet’s casual partners, and much as he liked Wheeljack, they just didn’t have the same kind of - trust.

He might be in trouble.

...trouble could wait until after.

“I could go for another demonstration,” he allowed, and Percy beamed.

*

Percy’s single-fingertip ‘demonstration’ of active sensors versus an inhibitor drove Ratchet into a writhing, shouting overload like nothing Drift had ever seen before. He found himself lingering beside the medberth as Ratchet shuddered and thrashed to a stop, Ratchet’s strong arms pulling the cuffs’ cables tight where they were attached to the head of the berth. If it wasn’t for the roil of challenge and sizzling pleasure making Ratchet’s field sing in _colours,_ he might really have believed that Ratchet was trying to get away. Perceptor hadn’t stopped smiling since clipping the ring over Ratchet’s spike, and that did kind of confuse him, since he couldn’t see what Percy was getting out of this other than Ratchet spread out and haranguing him and overloading under his hands, which-

...well. Okay, that might have something to do with it. 

Perceptor’s hands settled on Ratchet’s thighs when the other mech finally stilled and let his vents run, smoothing his palms up the heavy plating and over Ratchet’s hips. The little shiver didn’t go unnoticed, for all Ratchet was blasting heat from every seam and scowling about it, and Percy was smiling still as his hands pushed over red and white plating and up Ratchet’s chest to cup the edges of his windscreen.

“Are you having fun, dear?” Percy asked, all sassy solicitousness, then glanced over in what seemed like only slightly mock concern when Drift let out a backfiring snort. “Drift? Are we continuing?”

“‘M good,” Drift said, and managed not to make it sound like he was laughing even on the inside. Ratchet scowled and clearly didn’t believe it for a click, of course, but then Drift liked him _because_ he was smart, not in spite of it.

“For a warm-up,” Ratchet huffed, a challenging gleam in his optic. “Be even better if I had _all_ my spike available, you sneaky glitch.”

“Now, Ratchet, no name-calling. This is not that kind of session,” Percy scolded primly, and Ratchet laughed out loud. “You reacted beautifully from a small sample size, and that is something to be proud of.”

“Ooh, baby, talk science to me,” Ratchet purred, and Drift tried not to shift on his pedes. He kind of liked being Percy’s lab assistant, if Ratchet wanted the experiments as much as he seemed to. 

Percy tipped his head, sending his smile pouring down the length of Ratchet’s splayed legs, his near-hand’s fingers still curling around and petting Ratchet’s ample corners as the other slid back to stroke over Ratchet’s midsection, soothing the crackles of charge down into something banked and steady. A prickle of _something_ went darting through Drift’s substructure at the gesture, but he was hard-pressed to tell whether it was apprehension or - or _something_ in him responding to the gentleness in Perceptor’s face and hands. “Drift?” Percy said, and Drift found himself leaning into the words. “How are you finding all this?”

Words deserted him entirely as he met Percy’s gaze. Drift had no idea what he was doing here, really, no way to describe the faint, trembling warmth that cast a golden light through his spark, but Perceptor saw it in him anyway, or read something in Drift’s face that he couldn’t begin to express. “Oh,” Percy murmured, and Ratchet craned his head to see what was going on. “I think I understand, a little. Would you like to come up with Ratchet?”

It felt like walking into a cold washrack, and Drift shook himself inside and out. “Not - like that,” he forced out, his vocaliser knotting up, but before he could back up or lash out Perceptor was already shaking his head.

“No, dear, not like that. But you liked seeing Ratchet enjoy himself, did you not? I think, perhaps, you could see more from cuddling up next to him. Does that sound better?”

“Perce,” Ratchet said with a growl of his engine, and Drift warmed just a little all over again at the warning in his voice. “Don’t push it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Perceptor said softly, and - maybe it was the look on his face or the tone of his voice, or the way his hand soothed down Ratchet’s plating without seeming to even realise it, but Drift believed him. He shifted, stepped forward, and hoisted himself up to perch on the edge of Ratchet’s berth. Ratchet started, looking up at him with wide optics that seemed just a little vulnerable, and that - Drift didn’t like that much. It meant the world that Ratchet worried about him, struck him to the core every time, but Ratchet shouldn’t look like the slightest thing could hurt him. Drift wouldn’t let it.

Ratchet’s vents hitched as Drift nestled into his side, fitting his sharp angles into Ratchet’s solid, safe corners. Drift almost felt like if he could tuck in close and find the right angle, the right shapes to fit together, he could click himself and Ratchet together like a set of tumblers. They hadn’t the same frames, sure, but - fitting together, a big gear and a little one. He tucked his helm in close against the heavy plates of Ratchet’s shoulder, in the shadow of Ratchet’s outflung arm, and felt his partner trembling - that wasn’t right, that wasn’t right at all, and his fingers curled shyly around the edge of Ratchet’s windscreen the way Percy’s had before, in a way Drift hadn’t quite dared before now.

“‘S okay,” he murmured, quiet and a little echoey against Ratchet’s plating. “I got you.”

Ratchet let his vents go all at once, a big whoosh of heated atmosphere that felt weirdly _relieved._ “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, his field going all fierce and soft all at once. “Yeah, you got me. We’re okay, right?”

Drift nodded, a little smile playing about his mouth and feeding the gentle warmth and the bubbles through his lines, and only sighed a little when Percy’s hand came close to his helm. Nothing was going to hurt him in Percy’s shadow, not when the other mech was always so careful and always so kind.

“I confess, I never imagined this,” Percy said softly, something strange and wondering in his voice, and Drift’s nose scrunched as he tried to figure out what the other mech was talking about. “...Drift? May I touch your helm? I would very much like to pet you a little, if that’s all right.”

Huh. Well, that sounded all right. Drift hummed wordless assent, then sighed all over again as Perceptor’s hand rested atop his crest and started - yeah, there wasn’t any other word for that other than ‘petting’, rubbing up and down the heavy ridge nice and slow and smooth and pressing him down against Ratchet’s shoulder, just a little. Drift’s systems down-shifted, the gentle warmth filling him up, glowing where Percy stroked him and where Ratchet’s plating pressed against his. 

“Everything okay down there?” Ratchet asked, and Drift let out a muffled sort of noise and inched even closer to listen to how Ratchet’s voice rumbled through his frame. This close it made his finials buzz, and the bubbles sparkling through his lines turned sweet and crystalline. He didn’t want to move, maybe ever again, and he sighed through his vents as Percy’s fingers kneaded the crest of his helm just behind the sharp edges of his forehelm and the little yellow vanity-piece there. It felt like cuddling up to Ratchet after they’d fumbled their way past the overload into the good part, his limbs heavy and his spark at peace. Percy was saying something, but Drift wasn’t really listening, if he was honest, and he felt too good right now not to be.

“...Drift? Are you with us, dear?”

He could get used to Percy calling him ‘dear’, too. Happy little tingles at the pet-name and the fondness in Perceptor’s voice rose to join the bubbles already running through his lines at _Ratchet-comfort,_ and Drift hummed a contented sort of acknowledgement. Percy let out a little noise that took Drift a moment to categorise as a _squeak,_ and that was weird enough for him to blink his optics foggily back online and tilt his head up to try and catch sight of the other mech’s face.

...huh. That was the sort of face Perceptor usually saved for when the lab equipment was being really good for him.

“You are much nicer than the lab equipment, dear,” Percy told him affectionately with a funny sort of giddiness in his voice, and oh, right. He must have said that out loud. Huh. 

...hee. Drift was nicer than the lab equipment. Perceptor _said_ so. 

He gave Percy what must have been actually kind of a goofy grin, and Percy let out another little squeak, and Ratchet’s field was warm and bright and definitely nuzzleable and maybe he should get on that. This was _nice._ Drift wriggled, still sleepy-heavy and warm from getting petted - Perceptor was really good at that; maybe they should keep him - and shifted up to his knees, looking contemplatively down at Ratchet’s face.

“I’m nicer than the lab equipment,” he told him, and Ratchet grinned in a way that looked both proud and happy and kind of like he wanted to laugh.

“So I hear,” he said dryly back, and Drift beamed at him. Ratchet was the _best,_ and Drift - Drift honestly didn’t think he could ever get any happier than this. “...hey. You okay with all this?”

Drift tilted his head slightly, some of the comfortable lethargy subsiding just below his plating as his processor cranked slowly back into gear. ‘All this’? ...oh. Right. The - port and plugs and arrays and - stuff. He must have wrinkled his nose or something, since both Ratchet _and_ Percy’s fields started to get worried and whip about each other, and he shook his helm quickly to dispel it.

“‘S kinda nice,” he said, and frag if it didn’t come out all kinds of shy. ...then again, given the way Ratchet was looking at him and the quiet huff of Percy’s vents after he said it...maybe shy was true enough. He’d never had anyone so focussed on making sure he was _happy,_ let alone two of them at once. “...reckon I’m pretty lucky.”

“So are we,” Perceptor said quietly, every word ringing through his field, and Drift’s shoulders came up as his face did something embarrassing to his smile. “Drift? Are you happy staying where you are, or-?”

Drift considered it, sitting back on his pedes and looking over his shoulder at Percy, then back to Ratchet again. Both of them waited for him, steady and patient and kind, and Drift’s spark could just _burst_ with how good he felt. There were words for it, he knew, but for now...

“Yeah,” he said, and gave Ratchet a quick little grin, optics soft, before turning back to Percy. “Wanna see if you can make Ratch forget to curse?”

*

Percy could get pretty inventive, it turned out, and Ratchet made plenty of noise before he eventually slumped back against the berth, fans spinning hard and field heavy with contented weariness. Drift forgot exactly what had finally made Ratchet lose all of his words entirely, too caught up by watching the medic’s face as his mouth worked and his optics shone unseeing up at the ceiling. Charge tickled through Drift’s frame by the time Ratchet pinged their comms in the agreed-on signal for _I need a break,_ \- he hadn’t overloaded, no matter how loud and spectacular Ratchet’s had been, and he hadn’t really felt like trying for one despite the thrum of Ratchet’s arousal pressed against his plating. Percy stayed bent over the medberth as Ratchet’s vents roared, murmuring affectionate nonsense and what sounded like the kinds of equations he’d say aloud to himself in the labs, unlocking and stroking Ratchet’s hands as they twitched and shivered in the aftershocks. Eventually Ratchet reset his vocaliser in a cough of static, sounding almost embarrassed, and Percy drew back a little with a smile that saw right through him. Drift was impressed.

“Well, that was lovely,” Perceptor said, shifting to where Ratchet could see him and - sounding almost awkward himself now that the actual ‘facing seemed to be over. His hands twisted together, a there and gone gesture that didn’t go unnoticed; not by Drift, anyway. “How are you feeling, both of you?”

“Not movin’,” Ratchet mumbled, and reached out to pat at Drift’s plating and draw him down into Ratchet’s arms. Drift was delighted - for a moment, then he saw Perceptor setting his shoulders and turning for the door. Something hitched right through him, something almost like panic and almost like loss and he reached out without thinking, his rough fingers catching at Perceptor’s long ones. The taller mech startled as he turned back, optics wide and confused - Drift tugged, not entirely sure of himself now that he’d acted on impulse, but after a bare click’s impassivity Perceptor shifted his weight and _came back,_ hovering beside the berth with a look about him like he hadn’t expected any of this and could some kind instrument figure out what was going on. They stared at each other in a click or three of mute pleading until Ratchet grunted and hitched his weight over, hips rising and falling with a decisive _whumpf_ against the berth padding, and the rest of him - and Drift along with him - following suit, with Perceptor following after like a Kaon transport after a tugboat. “Uh uh,” Ratchet grumped, his optics already shading offline as Perceptor clambered up onto the - thankfully Prime-sized - medberth. “No duckin’ out without cuddles, Perce, ‘s in the rules.”

Perceptor’s face softened, and all at once it was like the moment of uncertainty and not-belonging had never happened at all. Drift grinned at him, kind of tired himself after all, and tugged at Perceptor’s hand again until the taller mech settled down in turn. _’S more like it. Ratchet is **best** medic._

Drift shuffled in between the larger mechs and fitted himself in against Ratchet, tucking his back up against Ratchet’s side. After a moment’s shy hesitation, he shifted so that his pedes settled atop Perceptor’s thighs, his legs curled over Percy’s hips; Ratchet lay flat on his back, one arm under Drift’s helm and his hand flopping back against Percy’s chest, wiggling his fingers imperiously until Perceptor took his hand with a chuckle. After a moment, when they were all more or less settled, Drift tilted his helm to meet Perceptor’s optics.

A smooth, careful hand wrapped gently around Drift’s ankle joint, thumb rubbing circles into Drift’s plating. Perceptor beamed at him, and Drift relaxed.

_This is okay. We’re going to be okay._

_I’m home._


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some time in the future, Drift attends the Treks in Iacon. He's not alone.

“Are you ready?” 

Drift cycled his vents, set his pedes firmly against the ground and nodded. He might’ve held on a little bit tighter to Percy and Ratchet’s hands, but that was nobody’s business but theirs, even if there was nothing stopping the weird-looking Praxian from seeing and smiling at them. “Ready.” 

...and there was the smile, _literally_ lighting the mech’s face from the inside. Kinda creepy. Drift did his best to relax, perfectly aware of the guards on duty and that they were all sensible, steady mechs - Gladius was off-duty this shift, but the others were switching out so they all got a turn to enjoy the Trek. Everything was taken care of, Megatron and Orion would be fine, they _had_ this. 

He still didn’t let go of Perceptor and Ratchet’s hands, his grip tightening as Prowl closed his optics and lowered his hands to Primus - and the Dead End, _Rodion_ \- far below. The glowing Praxian-shape rippled, then light washed out from him in a soft, unstoppable wave. Drift braced himself - he couldn’t _not_ \- but the expanding ring of power didn’t so much as fritz his relays when it hit. It rolled over him and through him, made his partners’ plating sparkle in the corners of his optics, and for a moment a sense of such strut-deep unconditional _love_ whispered over his protoform that Drift felt tears sting at his optics and gather in his throat.

The wave passed, Prowl flickering like the sparks from a loose wire with an expression that looked like the wave had _felt_ , transforming his face into something beautiful. Then Drift shook himself, shaking away the fanciful ideas to tell Megatron later and give him something to put into his poems. There was something - someone - waiting for him, and Prowl glanced up at them for just long enough to give Drift an approving smile before he went to go be somewhere else with his own partner. Relaxing slightly, Drift squeezed Ratchet and Percy’s hands, then let them go to turn around. 

Another glowing figure was waiting for him at a polite remove, smiling soft and fond back at him, and Drift darted forwards before he could think of anything else.

He thumped to a halt amid the faintest impression of sheltering arms cradling him close and Drift held on as tightly as he could, his nose pressing into the crook of the wandering spark’s shoulder.

“I am so proud of you,” Gasket’s shade whispered, and Drift shut down his optics against the resurging sting of tears. Words failed him, but Gasket didn’t need them - he never had - and a cool tingle stroked over Drift’s helm the way nobody could ever copy. If he’d needed any more proof, this was it.

“Hi, old mech,” he croaked, hoarse and straining with static, and felt as much as he heard Gasket’s chuckle.

“I missed you too, dearspark,” Gasket murmured against his audial, and held him tighter as Drift clung for all he was worth. They stayed that way for long moments, oblivious to almost everything else, until Drift stirred and looked up to give Gasket a crooked, wet-opticed smile.

“I got people I want you to meet,” he told his guardian, and led him over to where Perceptor and Ratchet stood waiting.

 

~fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and there you have it. ^_^ Next up in the Megatron-and-Orion huge fic of doom, which we have both yet to finish and yet to go over with a fine editing tooth-comb, but once we've got a bit more done on that you'll see it appear in the series tag, so watch this space! :D Thank you so much to everyone who's read and commented - I have a soft spot for Drift a mile wide, much as I do Prowl, and I hope it's been fun.


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